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NLP Research Group 9

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

floating

How many times the word 'floating' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

woman

How many times the word 'woman' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

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you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

factory

How many times the word 'factory' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

indefinitely

How many times the word 'indefinitely' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

still

How many times the word 'still' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

cimourdain

How many times the word 'cimourdain' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

he----

How many times the word 'he----' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

beauty

How many times the word 'beauty' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

inhabitants

How many times the word 'inhabitants' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

universities

How many times the word 'universities' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

detested

How many times the word 'detested' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

go

How many times the word 'go' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

liberator

How many times the word 'liberator' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

congratulate

How many times the word 'congratulate' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

favor

How many times the word 'favor' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

age

How many times the word 'age' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

declined

How many times the word 'declined' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

beside

How many times the word 'beside' appears in the text?

you resolved to stay over." Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had pressed his hand in silence: "Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?" Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said: "No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me." Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to pay." The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was there. It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection-- only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them. Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet and winning in its incorrectness, while their English was high-pitched and nasal, and a little too loud in company. They were as pretty as girls are anywhere, and they wore dresses designed by Mr. Worth, or his New York rivals, Loque and Chiffon; but they occasionally looked across the room with candid and intelligent envy at maidens of less pretensions, who were better dressed by the local artists. Farnham was stopped at some distance from the pretty group by a buxom woman standing near the open window, cooling the vast spread of her bare shoulders in a current of air, which she assisted in its office with a red-and-gold Japanese fan. "Captain Farnham," she said, "when are you going to give that lawn-tennis party you promised so long ago? My character for veracity depends on it. I have told everybody it would be soon, and I shall be disgraced if it is delayed much longer." "That is the common lot of prophets, Mrs. Adipson," replied Farnham. "You know they say in Wall Street that early and exclusive information will ruin any man. But tell me, how is your club getting on?" he continued disingenuously, for he had not the slightest interest in the club; but he knew that once fairly started on the subject, Mrs. Adipson would talk indefinitely, and he might stand there and torture his heart and delight his eyes with the beauty of Alice Belding. He carried his abstraction a little too far, however, for the good lady soon perceived, from his wandering looks and vague replies, that she was not holding his attention. So she pettishly released him after following the direction of his eyes, and said, "There, I see you are crazy to go and talk to Miss Dallas. I won't detain you. She _is_ awfully clever, I suppose, though she never took the trouble to be brilliant in my presence; and she is pretty when she wears her hair that way--I never liked those frizzes." Farnham accepted his release with perhaps a little more gratitude than courtesy, and moved away to take a seat which had just been vacated beside Miss Dallas. He was filled with a boyish delight in Mrs. Adipson's error. "That she should think I was worshipping Miss Dallas from afar! Where do women keep their eyes? To think that anybody should look at Miss Dallas when Alice Belding was sitting beside her." It was pleasant to think, however, that the secret of his unhappy love was safe. Nobody was gossiping about it, and using the name of his beloved in idle conjectures. That was as it should be. His love was sacred from rude comment. He could go and sit by Miss Dallas, so near his beloved that he could see every breath move the lace on her bosom. He could watch the color come and go on her young cheek. He could hear every word her sweet voice uttered, and nobody would know he was conscious of her existence. Full of this thought, he sat down by Miss Dallas, who greeted him warmly and turned her back upon her friends. By looking over her shining white shoulder, he could see the clear, pure profile of Alice just beyond, so near that he could have laid his hand on the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone--the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any one of being capable of the treason and bad taste of looking over her shoulder at another woman. She was, by common consent, the belle of Buffland. Her father was a widowed clergyman, of good estate, of literary tendencies, of enormous personal vanity, who had abandoned the pulpit in a quarrel with his session several years before, and now occupied himself in writing poems and sketches of an amorous and pietistic nature, which in his opinion embodied the best qualities of Swinburne and Chalmers combined, but which the magazines had thus far steadily refused to print. He felt himself infinitely superior to the society of Buffland,--with one exception,--and only remained there because his property was not easily negotiable and required his personal care. The one exception was his daughter Euphrasia. He had educated her after his own image. In fact, there was a remarkable physical likeness between them, and he had impressed upon her every trick of speech and manner and thought which characterized himself. This is the young lady who turns her bright, keen, beautiful face upon Farnham, with eyes eager to criticise, a tongue quick to flatter and to condemn, a head stuffed full of poetry and artificial passion, and a heart saved from all danger by its idolatry of her father and herself. "So glad to see you--one sees so little of you--I can hardly believe my good fortune--how have I this honor?" All this in hard, rapid sentences, with a brilliant smile. Farnham thought of the last words of Mrs. Adipson, and said, intrepidly, "Well, you know the poets better than I do, Miss Euphrasia, and there is somebody who says, 'Beauty draws us by the simple way she does her hair'--or something like it. That classic fillet was the first thing I saw as I entered the room, and _me voici!_" We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a _pensum_ of fifty lines for such a misquotation. But, _dites-donc, monsieur_"--for French was one of her favorite affectations, and when she found a man to speak it with, she rode the occasion to death. There had been a crisis in the French ministry a few days before, and she now began a voluble conversation on the subject, ostensibly desiring Farnham's opinion on the crisis, but really seizing the opportunity of displaying her familiarity with the names of the new cabinet. She talked with great spirit and animation, sometimes using her fine eyes point-blank upon Farnham, sometimes glancing about to observe the effect she was creating; which gave Farnham his opportunity to sigh his soul away over her shoulder to where Alice was sweetly and placidly talking with her friends. She had seen him come in, and her heart had stood still for a moment; but her feminine instinct sustained her, and she had not once glanced in his direction. But she was conscious of every look and action of his; and when he approached the corner where she was sitting, she felt as if a warm and embarrassing ray of sunshine was coming near her, She was at once relieved and disappointed when he sat down by Miss Dallas. She thought to herself: "Perhaps he will never speak to me again. It is all my fault. I threw him away. But it was not my fault. It was his--it was hers. I do not know what to think. He might have let me alone. I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care. Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said: "There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." "Are you sure they are flirting?" "Of course they are. Just look at them!" "If you are sure they are flirting, I don't think it is right to look at them. Still, if you disapprove of it very much, you might speak to them about it," she suggested, in her sweet, low, serious voice. "Oh, that would never do for a man of my age," replied Furrey, in good faith. He was very vain of his youth. "What I wanted to speak to you about was this," he continued. "There is going to be a Ree-gatta on the river the day after to-morrow, and I hope you will grant me the favor of your company. The Wissagewissametts are to row with the Chippagowaxems, and it will be the finest race this year. Billy Raum, you know, is stroke of the------" Her face was still turned to him, but she had ceased to listen. She was lost in contemplation of what seemed to her a strange and tragic situation. Farnham was so near that she could touch him, and yet so far away that he was lost to her forever. No human being knew, or ever would know, that a few days ago he had offered her his life, and she had refused the gift. Nobody in this room was surprised that he did not speak to her, or that she did not look at him. Nobody dreamed that he loved her, and she would die, she resolved deliberately, before she would let anybody know that she loved him. "For I do love him with my whole heart," she said to herself, with speechless energy, which sent the blood up to her temples, and left her, in another instant, as pale as a lily. Furrey at that moment had concluded his enticing account of the regatta, and she had quietly declined to accompany him. He moved away, indignant at her refusal, and puzzled by the blush which accompanied it. "What did that mean?" he mused. "I guess it was because I said the crews rowed in short sleeves." Farnham also saw the blush, in the midst of a disquisition which Miss Dallas was delivering upon a new poem of Francois Coppee. He saw the clear, warm color rise and subside like the throbbing of an auroral light in a starry night. He thought he had never seen anything so lovely, but he wondered "what that oaf could have said to make her blush like that. Can it be possible that he----" His brow knitted with anger and contempt. "_Mais, qu'est-ce que vous avez donc?_" asked Euphrasia. Farnham was saved from the necessity of an explanation by Mr. Temple, who came up at that moment, and, laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder, said: "Now we will go into my den and have a glass of that sherry. I know no less temptation than Tio Pepe could take you away from Miss Dallas." "Thank you awfully," said the young lady. "Why should you not give Miss Dallas herself an opportunity to decline the Tio Pepe?" "Miss Dallas shall have some champagne in a few minutes, which she will like very much better. Age and wickedness are required to appreciate sherry." "Ah! I congratulate your sherry; it is about to be appreciated," said the deserted beauty, tartly, as the men moved away. They entered the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some glasses. He filled two, and gave one to Arthur, and held the other under his nose. "Farnham," he said, with profound solemnity, "if you don't call that the"--(I decline to follow him in the pyrotechnical combination of oaths with which he introduced the next words)--"best sherry you ever saw, then I'm a converted pacer with the ringbone." Arthur drank his wine, and did not hesitate to admit all that its owner had claimed for it. He had often wondered how such a man as Temple had acquired such an unerring taste. "Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?" Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?" "Yes," said Farnham. "You know this is the genuine stuff, then?" "No doubt of it." "_How_ do you know?" "The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about." "Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold." This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder. "I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables." He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time." "Have some more?" he said to Farnham. "No, thank you." "Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey." Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight." "What will it amount to?" asked Farnham. "Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down." Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town. "How long have you known this?" he asked. "Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you." Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. "We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them." "Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together. "There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help." "As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage." "No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne." XII. A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR. The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words: "Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty." After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street. "Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present." "Is that all?" "No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week." "Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings. He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property." "Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?" "I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes. He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better. "Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin." "Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit. "There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves." The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you." "Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you." "Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr." As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene: "That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough." Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?" The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch. "Have you got it ready?" "No, but I will not be a minute about it." "Be lively! You haven't got but a minute." He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words: "Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square." From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said: "Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?" "Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?" "I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty." "All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket." "Have you got them?" "Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city." "Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven." "Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service. Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back." "What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham. "They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike." "Do you expect to give in?" "Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far." The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot." "Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it. "Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him." "Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy." "You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it." Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion

gold

How many times the word 'gold' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

uncle

How many times the word 'uncle' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

painful

How many times the word 'painful' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

mr.

How many times the word 'mr.' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

shaving

How many times the word 'shaving' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

ext

How many times the word 'ext' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

thank

How many times the word 'thank' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

beer

How many times the word 'beer' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

criticize

How many times the word 'criticize' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

wretched

How many times the word 'wretched' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

danger

How many times the word 'danger' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

fat

How many times the word 'fat' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

lange

How many times the word 'lange' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

mounted

How many times the word 'mounted' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

looking

How many times the word 'looking' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

write

How many times the word 'write' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

couple

How many times the word 'couple' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

suppose

How many times the word 'suppose' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

puts

How many times the word 'puts' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

smacks

How many times the word 'smacks' appears in the text?

you saying, Chuck? Do you want me around or not? Do you even like me? BARRIS Of course I like you. PENNY How much? BARRIS What? PENNY I need to know how much you like me. (CONTINUED) 76. CONTINUED: BARRIS (beat) I don't even know what that means, "how much?" How can I rate a person in that way? That's ridiculous. PENNY You could if you felt it. If you felt it, it would be easy to rate me. You could spread your arms as wide as they would go and say, "This much, Penny." BARRIS Everything's complicated, Pen. Nothing's black and white like that. PENNY Do you want me around or not? If you don't, just say so, so I know. Okay? Barris and Penny look at each other. She starts to cry. BARRIS I love you, Pen, in my way. Maybe not in that crazy, head-over-heels thing, but what is that, anyway? Romantic love. Isn't that just an illusion? PENNY (beat) But you just said you love me, right? EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - NIGHT A non-descript American car is parked on the quiet wooded street. Barris pulls up in his Jaguar. He gets out of the car, looks in the window of the empty American car. BYRD (O.S.) Over here, Strawberry-dick. Barris looks over and makes out Byrd sitting on a rock with a view of L.A. spread out in front of him. Barris joins him. BARRIS Jesus, how do you know these things? BYRD We even know what she actually thought it tasted like. (CONTINUED) 77. CONTINUED: BARRIS Really? I could never find that out. What did she think? BYRD It's a "need to know", my friend. So tell me, what can I do you for? BARRIS I could really use an assignment, Jim. To straighten my head. BYRD I got something for your head. INT. DATING GAME SET A Dating Game couple waits anxiously for host Jim Lange to announce their destination. JIM LANGE ... and we're the sending the two of you for three days and three nights to beautiful... West Berlin! The couple screams excitedly by reflect, but as the destination sinks in, their perplexity becomes apparent. EXT. WEST BERLIN STREET - DAY Barris and the Dating Game couple walk along. It's cold and gray and they all wear heavy coats. The couple wear cameras around their necks. Nobody looks happy. INT. BEER HALL - NIGHT Barris sits in the corner of this noisy, smoky place. He has a stein of beer and reads a paper as a group of drunken Germans in the background sing a song. Patricia Watson approaches and sits. Barris looks up and smiles. BARRIS Treesh. PATRICIA Leibchen. (kisses him, sits) So, here's what we got. Name's Hans Colbert. (pulls out photos) Other side of the wall. We don't like him very much. (CONTINUED) 78. CONTINUED: BARRIS (singing Toot-toot-tootsie) Bye-bye, Colbert, bye-bye. PATRICIA You'll work with a kraut named Keeler. He's been trailing Colbert for a month now. Knows the routine. Keeler's a drunk, so you stay sober and take charge. BARRIS (collecting photos) Done and done. See you after? PATRICIA Prove how much you love me, baby. Kill for me. Then I'm all yours. INT. TUNNEL - DAY Barris crawls through a long dirt tunnel. Telephone cables run along the floor. An occasional bare bulb lights the way. INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - DAY A middle-aged man stands in his underwear at a mirror and shaves. The stall shower pushes away from the wall revealing a hole. Barris steps through it, covered in dust. He nods at the shaving man. He nods back, hands Barris a gun and a change of clothes, and continues shaving. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER Barris exits the apartment building in the clean clothes. We see the East Berlin side of the wall in the background. A car pulls up and Barris gets in. INT. CAR, RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY Barris sits in the parked car with Keeler, a heavyset, silent German man with nicotine stained fingers and teeth. He is constantly smoking and writing in a tiny notebook. There is a long silence. BARRIS What you writing, Sig? KEELER I am keeping track of all the goings on on this street. Barris looks out the window. There is nothing going on, yet Keeler keeps writing. More silence. (CONTINUED) 79. CONTINUED: BARRIS Hey, Keeler, a bird just flew by. KEELER Yah. I know how to do my job. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - NIGHT Barris and Keeler are still in the car. Keeler continues to smoke and write. A well-rested, happy-looking Colbert walks by with a group of people. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - AFTERNOON Barris looks even more sickly. Colbert rides by happily on a tandem bike with a lovely woman on the back. Keeler continues to smoke and write. DISSOLVE TO: INT. PARKED CAR - EVENING Barris and Keeler wait in the car. Colbert emerges from his house, alone, and walks toward the car. A drained Barris sighs a sigh of relief, then suddenly and with unexpected force, Keeler swings open the passenger door. The door hits a stunned Colbert and sends him flying. Keeler races around the car, grabs Colbert, throws him into the back seat, and jumps on top of him. Barris watches, surprised at the dramatic personality shift in Keeler. Keeler is strangling Colbert. A cigarettes is dangling casually from his lips as he does this. Keeler turns Colbert over so he's facing him, so he can watch him die. KEELER (calmly to Barris) Under the seat, please. Barris reaches under the seat, pulls out a Polaroid camera. KEELER (CONT'D) Please, if you don't mind, a photograph. To remember. Barris is stunned, scared. He takes the photo. The flash illuminates the bulging-eyed Colbert and the calm Keeler. 80. INT. HOTEL ROOM - MORNING Barris types. A knock at the door. He looks up, panicked. BARRIS (falsetto) Who is it? HOUSEKEEPER (O.S.) Housekeeping, Mr. Barris. Barris looks around. The place is a disaster. Food wrappers, crumpled papers, liquor bottles, strewn clothing, plastic army men set up for battle. He gets up, puts on a hotel bathrobe and his hat, grabs his gun, checks the peephole for a long moment, and answers the door. The housekeeper is plump and kind-looking. BARRIS Good morning, Mrs. Reynolds. HOUSEKEEPER (looking around) Another rough night, huh? BARRIS (tapping his head) The human psyche is a wondrous thing. HOUSEKEEPER (smiling maternally) Yes, I know it is. (taking gun) We don't need this now, do we? Why don't we just put this away? She puts the gun in a drawer, starts to pick up. Barris watches her, then: BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, may I rest my head on your bosom for a little while? HOUSEKEEPER Oh, that doesn't really seem like a very good idea, Mr. Barris. BARRIS I'm sorry. You're right. I just... I'm just without... comfort of any sort, and I... please forgive me. (CONTINUED) 81. CONTINUED: HOUSEKEEPER (smiles at him) No harm done. Barris smacks himself in the head. BARRIS (bowing) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a scholar and... HOUSEKEEPER It's fine, sir. BARRIS Mrs. Reynolds, what do you suppose God thinks of someone like me? HOUSEKEEPER God? BARRIS Yes, God. HOUSEKEEPER Well, Mr. Barris, your television shows have brought laughter and joy to millions of people. That's a very important thing, I think, in these difficult times. I would imagine God likes you very much. Barris smiles a rubber-band smile. BARRIS Thank you, that's very kind. (glances at her ample bosom) So... I should get back to... HOUSEKEEPER Yes, of course, sir. Don't mind me. Barris resumes typing. The housekeeper cleans. EXT. EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING A hollow-eyed Barris approaches the building that conceals the tunnel entrance. Suddenly there's a commotion on the quiet street. The shaving man is being led handcuffed out of the building by two trench-coated men. They shove him into a car. Barris continues to walk by, betraying no interest. He glances casually into the entranceway of the apartment building. Another trenchcoated man waits inside the shadows. (CONTINUED) 82. CONTINUED: The car drives away. Barris stops at the end of the block, stares at the imposing wall. BARRIS I'm really, really fucked. Another car pulls up next to him. Picard, a serious-looking Frenchman, sticks his head out the window. PICARD Get in. BARRIS What? Who the hell are you? PICARD No time. Get in or die. Barris hesitates, gets in. The car screeches off. INT. PICARD'S CAR - CONTINUOUS Picard drives fast. Barris eyes him suspiciously, fingers his gun. Picard spots a Fiat in his rearview mirror. PICARD Merde. KGB. They know who you are, Monsieur Barris. It is their intention to kill you very much in East Berlin. Barris checks in the passenger side mirror. BARRIS Merde! MERDE! PICARD Not to worry, my friend. Picard speeds up dramatically, but continues to drive calmly. Barris is agitated. PICARD (CONT'D) I am Paul Picard, by the way. Nice to meet you. Do not worry, I am not KGB. I do not want to kill you, I want you to live a long happy life and have many dancing grandchildren to admire. Picard screeches around a corner, then another one. He's lost the Fiat, for the moment. 83. EXT. QUIET EAST BERLIN STREET - EARLY MORNING Picard's car stops at the curb. Picard and Barris emerge. Picard opens the trunk. He lifts out a big folded-up clump of rubber with a an engine mounted on it. BARRIS What the hell is that? PICARD Your ride, Monsieur Barris. Picard unfolds the rubber mass. He pulls a cord and it begins to inflate. It is an airplane, a one person inflatable plane. BARRIS No fucking way. PICARD It's quite reliable and easy to operate. It will get you over the wall. Or you can stay here. In the German Democratic Republic. I will arrange for you to get a good factory job. No, you must fly, like Daedalus before you, to the freedom of the west. BARRIS Christ. What about you? PICARD They do not catch me, monsieur. This is my talent, to get away always. In guerre. In amour. This is my talent, and perhaps this is my curse. EXT. BERLIN WALL - DAY The fully-inflated rubber plane flies down the street, dipping and rising erratically. The noise is deafening. Barris lies on his stomach and steers, looking petrified. He approaches the wall and manages to get the plane over it. The plane is shot by a soldier. Air hisses out. EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Barris sits on a park bench. Jim Byrd approaches, sits. BYRD (chuckling) So, did you have a nice flight? (CONTINUED) 84. CONTINUED: BARRIS Fuck you, Jim. It was terrifying. BYRD Seems the KGB knew exactly what you were up to. You were there to kill Colbert, they were there to kill you. I'm thinking we got a mole. So much hate in the world, Chuck. BARRIS Am I in danger still? BYRD Jesus, yes. KGB didn't go out of business since yesterday, so far as I know. You're fucked, Chuck. But our main concern should be: if they know who you are, they know who I am. BARRIS Fuck off. What do we do? BYRD Bow out. Lay low. That's what I'm gonna do. You're lucky you have another career to immerse yourself in. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris sits with a several network executive and some other staff members watching a fat man tap dance badly and, because of his weight, extremely loudly. It's painful for everybody to watch. The fat man finishes. BARRIS Thank you. Thanks. That was great. The fat smiles and exits. Barris puts his head in his hands. EXECUTIVE WOMAN I don't know, Chuck. It's looking bleak. BARRIS There's gotta be somebody in America with some talent. Ted Mack got bookings every week. The executives look at each other. BARRIS (CONT'D) Bring in the next thing. (CONTINUED) 85. CONTINUED: An assistant opens the door and a middle-aged woman in pale blue polyester pants and Joan Crawford painted on eyebrows enters with a guitar. She begins to sing a folk song, very sincerely, in a very off-key monotone. It's unbearable and depressing. Barris glances over at the executive; she's checking her watch again. The song is endless. Barris's eyes grow cloudy. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. FIELD - DAY This is the same field where Renda was shot. Now, the folksinging woman is in the field singing. Barris pulls out a gun and aims it at the woman. Her eyes widen in terror, but she keeps singing. A church bell chimes and Barris shoots her. She flies back, spurting blood. Her guitar hits the ground with a twang. INT. REHEARSAL HALL - DAY Barris snaps out of his fantasy with renewed energy The folksinger is still droning on. BARRIS (ushering out) Thank you. Thank you. We'll be in touch. That was wonderful. Barris closes the door behind the folksinger and turns to the executives. BARRIS (CONT'D) We've been going about this all wrong. Rather than killing ourselves trying to find good acts, we just book bad ones and kill them. EXECUTIVE #2 Chuck, it's torture to sit through even one of these people -- BARRIS We kill 'em before they're through. As soon as it gets unbearable, we kill 'em. Dead. EXECUTIVE WOMAN For God's sake, what are you talking about? (CONTINUED) 86. CONTINUED: BARRIS Celebrity judges ring a bell to end the act... to kill 'em. And when you kill something, it stops. This I know to be true. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris and some suits watch from the booth as an octogenarian woman on stage sings "Born Free" in an impossibly high voice. Jamie Farr gongs the woman. The woman is angry. A vacuous host with great hair appears next to the woman. He seems genuinely agitated. HOST Why'd you do that, Jamie? This is someone's grandmother. She was really trying. JAMIE FARR This is The Gong Show, not the Van Cliburn eliminations. HOST This is a human being with aspirations. BARRIS (muttering) Oh, fuck me. This guy sucks. He's bringing everyone down. The executives eye each other. EXECUTIVE WOMAN None of the hosts are getting it, Chuck. But we have a thought. BARRIS What? EXECUTIVE WOMAN You host. All the executives smile at Barris. EXECUTIVE WOMAN (CONT'D) You get it. And we believe your awkward, non-professional, mumbling persona is exactly right for the show. BARRIS I don't want to be on tv. (CONTINUED) 87. CONTINUED: EXECUTIVE WOMAN Listen, we can't sit through anymore of these test shows. Do it, Chuck, or we advise the network to pull it. INT. BARRIS PRODUCTIONS - NIGHT Barris switches on the lights, walks through the empty bullpen area to his office, unlocks the door, enters. INT. BARRIS'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Barris enters, stares out the window, looks at himself in a full-length mirror. BARRIS (stiff) Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Gong Show! I'm your host, Chuck Barris! (turns away in disgust) Ucchhh. Barris sits behind his desk, draws a line down a piece of paper and writes "Pros" and "Cons" at the top of the page. He thinks. Under "Pros" he writes "Become National Celebrity", "Get More Attention from Stewardesses", "Even more women will want to have sex with me". Under "Cons" he writes: "Easier target for KGB." He gets up, paces. Suddenly, a shot rings out. It comes through the window and shatters the mirror. Barris dives to the floor. More shots, crazy relentless shooting. Barris crawls on his belly to the window, carefully reaches up and lowers the venetian blinds just as another shot whizzes through. The blinds explode. The shooting stops He waits on the floor, shaking like a leaf. He pulls the list off his desk and writes under "Pro": "I need another hit before I die." INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Center-stage is empty. The band begins to play. The studio audience cheers. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) And now, here's the host and star of our show, Chuck Barris! The curtain rises. Barris appears in a tuxedo coat, denim work shirt, cowboy boots and a hat pulled down over his eyes. BARRIS Welcome to The Gong Show. Here's an esoteric act if there ever was one. Ephemeral. It's an ephemeral act. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 88. CONTINUED: BARRIS (CONT'D) One that should get us our Emmy. Do we have an Emmy? We don't? Well this should get us one. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen... Big Nose! Big Nose leaps onto stage. He is skinny, wearing a flowered shirt and a sarong, and playing a toy flute while dancing in ladies platform shoes. Suddenly he drops his flute, rips off his sarong, revealing polka-dotted boxer shorts and a yellow leotard. He rushes to a steamer trunk, opens it, and begins crazily pulling out endless amounts of old newspapers. Barris watches from the wings, mesmerized. Big Nose is gonged. Barris dances out onto stage to join him. BIG NOSE Why? Why? Why? BARRIS I don't know. I don't understand. Barris glances out into the audience. Something glints. Is it a gun. He starts to sweat. Jaye P. Morgan is saying something about Big Nose. But we can't understand it. The audience laughs. Barris continues to scan the audience. Someone in headphones signals Barris from behind a camera. BARRIS (CONT'D) (to Big Nose) Well, win a few, lose a few. (to audience) We'll be back with more stuff... right after this message. Barris waits on his mark for the taping to again begin. He watches the commotion around him with eagle eyes: technicians and stagehands running around, the audience chanting "Chuckie Baby", the celebrity panel joking with each other, the guys in the booth smoking, the guys in the band laughing. Barris turns around and around on his mark, trying to catch every movement, looking for a gun, a suspicious character. The chanting continues, louder and more distorted. The faces in the audience turn grotesque. Barris sweats profusely, his breathing becomes more and more shallow. Suddenly his eyes roll back in his head and he drops to the stage floor, unconscious. DISSOLVE TO: NEWSPAPER HEADLINES BEING SHOWN TO THE CAMERA: VARIETY: GONG SHOW EM-BARRIS-MENT OF RICHES HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: KING GONG! (CONTINUED) 89. CONTINUED: L.A. TIMES: BARRIS'S TALENT SHOWS DAILY NEWS: GONG HO! INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY We see Barris in bed, hooked up to machines The executive woman sits by his bed showing him the headlines. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You can't quit. BARRIS I can't quit? But I get panicky, Louise, in front of all those people. EXECUTIVE WOMAN You lack confidence, that's all. BARRIS I lack confidence? EXECUTIVE WOMAN But we'll take care of that. We'll get you some confidence powder. Leave that to us. BARRIS Confidence powder? EXECUTIVE WOMAN Nose candy, Chuck. Blow. Snow. Flake. BARRIS Blow, snow, flake? EXECUTIVE Coke. BARRIS Oh. Coke. Okay. Does that work? INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris on stage introducing an act. He is very confident. BARRIS Ladies and gentlemen, oh, this act is amazing, your gonna love this act. I'm telling ya. All the way from Pacoima... David Pincus! (CONTINUED) 90. CONTINUED: The curtain rises. A young man with a square of Plexiglass in his hands, presses his lips against the Plexiglass and blows. It makes a farting noise and allows to the audience to see inside his mouth. INT. WINGS - CONTINUOUS Barris snorts some cocaine. We hear the act and audience "booing" and yelling "Gong him!" in the background. INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY The actual Jaye P. Morgan is being interviewed. ACTUAL JAYE P. MORGAN Chuck was real different on stage and off. Very tense. He was always looking over his shoulder. Even when we were fucking. Sort of an enigma. INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY Barris dances onstage with Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. INT. SUBURBAN LIVING ROOM - DAY The actual Gene Gene is being interviewed. GENE GENE Oh yeah, a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes nice as you please. Give you the shirt off his back. Other times he'd rant like a crazy man. I remember once he screamed at me that I didn't know anything about dancing. "Nijinsky," he yelled, "now there was a dancer!" INT. GONG SHOW SET - DAY A black guy with weird teeth and a speech impediment attempts stand-up. He looks petrified. BLACK COMEDIAN Today I had a bad day today... The audience yells "How bad was it?" This throws the performer. Finally he continues. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) It was so bad, my wife didn't even know how to cook. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 91. CONTINUED: BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) That barracuda took an egg, put it in a pot of water, and burned the water. We had to rush that to the hospital. The audience boos. BLACK COMEDIAN (CONT'D) My mother-in-law... The booing continues. The comedian can't take it. He looks disoriented. He turns away from the audience and puts his head in his hands. Jamie Farr gongs him. EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY The actual Jamie Farr sits next to the pool. In the background we see a couple of kids with enormous noses splashing around in the water. JAMIE FARR Chuck used to love to discuss philosophy. I think he was very saddened that the public saw him as this sort of spastic moron. I remember at the time I was reading Wittgenstein. And Chuck was just thrilled to have someone else in addition to Rex Reed to talk about that stuff with. INT. BARRIS'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT Barris lies in bed next to Patricia. It's 12:30 AM. He's chatting on the phone, lazily twirling the cord. Patricia reads. BARRIS Look, Jamie, you know as well as I that language does not exist without an outward criteria. JAMIE FARR (TELEPHONE VOICE) Certainly. Wittgenstein said as much in Investigations. But if you read Ryle carefully -- PATRICIA (looking at clock) Chuck... BARRIS Can we pick up tomorrow? (CONTINUED) 92. CONTINUED: JAMIE FARR Yeah. But consider my thinking on elementary propositions. I'm serious. BARRIS Will do. Love ya. JAMIE FARR Right back at ya, amigo. Barris hangs up. Patricia kisses him. She pulls away. PATRICIA I'm concerned about you. I think you need to get back into the life. Our sex was always amazing after you killed. Truth is you're not that great after your discussions with Jamie Farr. The phone rings. PATRICIA (CONT'D) Oh, c'mon. BARRIS (picks up) Jamie, I can't talk anymore tonight -- KEELER (O.S.) (telephone voice) This is Siegfried Keeler. I need to see you. Barris jerks up, surprised, alarmed. Patricia watches him. BARRIS (V.O.) Assassins do not fraternize. That Keeler was calling me could mean it was my turn to get hit. KEELER (O.S.) (phone voice) I am in town on business, Chuck. And I desire nothing more than your company for dinner. I consider you one of my closest friends. BARRIS Sure. Dinner sounds good. There's a place called La Scala. See you there at eight. Barris hangs up. (CONTINUED) 93. CONTINUED: (2) PATRICIA (eyes closed) Dinner sounds good with whom? BARRIS Keeler. Patricia glances over at Barris. They stare at each other. EXT. LA SCALA PARKING LOT - EVENING Barris pulls into the parking lot. As he waits for the valet parking attendant to get to him, he adjusts the gun strapped to his ankle. INT. LA SCALA - EVENING Barris enters the crowded restaurant, looks around, spots Keeler sitting at a table in the rear. As he makes his way back, Barris shakes hands and says hello to several early seventies tv celebrities scattered throughout the restaurant: Carrol O'Connor, Joanne Worley, Flip Wilson, Ron Palillo. Barris arrives at Keeler's table. Keeler rises and embraces Chuck. He's already drunk. They sit. KEELER A very fancy place. BARRIS Only the best for my friend. KEELER The friendships one develops during wartime are remarkably strong. BARRIS Yes. There is an awkward silence. KEELER So how is the business of television? Barris, pleased to have something to talk about, rambles. BARRIS Well, it's hit and miss. I've got a new show called "Operation Entertainment" which I believe is going to kill. It's sort of a Bob Hope visiting the troops thing, but it's weekly and... Keeler is staring right through Barris. (CONTINUED) 94. CONTINUED: KEELER Why do you do what you do, Chuck? BARRIS Well, I like to think that I bring joy and laughter to millions of people. I'm not saying that my shows are as good as they could be. Yet. But -- KEELER Why do you kill? Barris looks around, clears his throat. BARRIS Oh. KEELER During the second world war, I had the pleasure of killing. Yes, pleasure. I found it exhilirating. Afterwards, I could find nothing else to fill me so much with life. So I became what I am today. I wanted the exhiliration again... of death. The waiter appears. WAITER Are you gentlemen ready to order? KEELER I'll have the shrimp scampi and a green salad. WAITER And for you, sir. KEELER Um, Just give me a steak. Rare. WAITER Thank you. The waiter leaves. Keeler sips his drink, stares at Barris. KEELER "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." (CONTINUED) 95. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS That's Carlyle! KEELER Yes. BARRIS It's amazing you should quote him. He's my hero. KEELER I read in a book recently that killing your first man is like making love to your first woman. Every smell, every nuance, you remember with a special allure, as if the acts had occured outside civilization, outside time. And when the allure is gone, you are condemned. BARRIS Condemned? KEELER I am condemned to live the rest of my life outside civilization. You will be too, my good friend. Barris looks into Keeler's hollow eyes. EXT. TERRACE - DAY The actual Barris puffs on his cigar. ACTUAL BARRIS The next day I heard Keeler offed himself. EXT. L.A. HOTEL - NIGHT Keeler falls silently in slow motion from a very high window. ACTUAL BARRIS (V.O.) You never really know in the world of espionage if something labeled a suicide actually is a suicide. But he was dead. That I knew. INT. MARTONI'S - NIGHT Barris eats dinner with Penny. Barris seems depressed. Penny is reserved. (CONTINUED) 96. CONTINUED: PENNY When you called, I wasn't gonna come. BARRIS I'm glad you did, Pen. PENNY I said to myself, enough. Enough of this jerk already. Enough. BARRIS I could see how you would feel that way. PENNY But I've come upon something interesting through my delvings into human psychology. It's called TA, Transactual Analysis. BARRIS Transactional Analysis. PENNY Now see, by correcting me you're responding as "Parent" to my "Child." (authoritative voice) "Here's the proper way to say this word, Penny." But that's okay. As long as we both understand that's what you're doing. Y'know, I'm okay, you're okay. So what's wrong, Chuck? Are you okay? BARRIS A guy I knew killed himself last night. PENNY My God. Everyone you know kills themselves. Or tries. Who is it this time? BARRIS You don't know him. A stagehand. PENNY Why'd he do it? BARRIS He didn't like his work anymore. PENNY Is being a stagehand really bad or something? (CONTINUED) 97. CONTINUED: (2) BARRIS (beat) Yeah, it's pretty bad. Patricia storms up to the table. PATRICIA You were supposed to meet me at The Palm two hours ago. BARRIS Oh fuck, I forgot. PENNY Who is this? PATRICIA I do not get stood up. Do you understand? BARRIS Um, Penny, this is Patricia. (to Patricia) How did you find me? PATRICIA Are you serious? That's what I do for a living. PENNY Who's Patricia? What does she mean, that's what she does for a living? PATRICIA You're dead in my book, Strawberry-dick. PENNY Strawberry dick? What's that? PATRICIA There is no second chance. Get it? (to Penny) Nice meeting you, Penny. I've heard a lot about you. (to Barris, walking away) Oh, by the by, Byrd's dead. Patricia exits. Penny just looks down at the table. PENNY And... and okay... I'm only gonna give you one more chance, man. That's it. Get it? 98. INT. BARRIS'S ROLLS ROYCE - NIGHT Barris snorts some coke, pulls out of the studio parking lot. The sound of his heart beating pounds in his ears. Another car pulls behind him. A wired Barris notices the car in his rearview mirror. He turns. The other car turns also. Barris speeds up. So does the other car. Barris panics; he tries to lose the other car. A chase ensues. Finally Barris screeches to a halt, pulls a gun from his glove compartment. The second car screeches to a halt behind him. Barris already out of his car and at the driver's side window of the second car. He looks in and sees there are two petrified teenagers, a boy and a girl, holding up their hands. Barris pulls open the door. BARRIS (screaming) Who sent you?! Who the fuck sent you?! TEENAGE BOY Nobody, man. We just waited for you to leave after the show. We just think the show is cool. We just think you're cool. The girl is crying. TEENAGE GIRL Please don't kill us. Barris points the gun at them for a long while, his hands shaking wildly. INT. GONG SHOW WINGS - DAY Barris stands backstage waiting for his cue. The Unknown Comic appears next to him, wearing a paper bag with two eyeholes cut out over his head. Barris glances over at him. UNKNOWN COMIC Hey, Chuck. Barris doesn't say anything. He studies the bag. Barris pulls a pistol from an ankle holster, and jams it against the bag. BARRIS Take it off. UNKNOWN COMIC Huh? BARRIS The fucking bag. Take it off. (CONTINUED) 99. CONTINUED: The

little

How many times the word 'little' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

injunction

How many times the word 'injunction' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

why

How many times the word 'why' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

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How many times the word 'long' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

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your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

eleven

How many times the word 'eleven' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

plan

How many times the word 'plan' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

strings

How many times the word 'strings' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

hastened

How many times the word 'hastened' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

week

How many times the word 'week' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

rescue

How many times the word 'rescue' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

house

How many times the word 'house' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

all

How many times the word 'all' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

spring

How many times the word 'spring' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

over

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your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

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How many times the word 'shaped' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

jewsharp

How many times the word 'jewsharp' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

guerilla

How many times the word 'guerilla' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

conviction

How many times the word 'conviction' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

heavy

How many times the word 'heavy' appears in the text?

your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. "_You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance. "Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to." "I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty." An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions. "Shoo," she whispered nasally. I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser." Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid. Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life. But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon." It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever. To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week. My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?" "But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce. "Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out. CHAPTER VII. My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence. With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity. Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word. Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor. The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces. I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me. CHAPTER VIII. It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers." "The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes." "She had better give you a gospel theme." He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands. "Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?" "No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry." "Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them." "Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns. "What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping." "How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?" "For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise." "Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese." They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up. If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness. CHAPTER IX. Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check. There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic. Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel. "Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar." "My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?" "It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?" Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best." "Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room." We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it." Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation. The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues. After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection

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your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

two

How many times the word 'two' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

alone

How many times the word 'alone' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

grateful

How many times the word 'grateful' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

devilish

How many times the word 'devilish' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

confession

How many times the word 'confession' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

feet--

How many times the word 'feet--' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

inland

How many times the word 'inland' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

statues

How many times the word 'statues' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

xxxiv

How many times the word 'xxxiv' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

twice

How many times the word 'twice' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

fifteen

How many times the word 'fifteen' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

right

How many times the word 'right' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

then

How many times the word 'then' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

manner

How many times the word 'manner' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

ready

How many times the word 'ready' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

calm

How many times the word 'calm' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

nurse

How many times the word 'nurse' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

safe

How many times the word 'safe' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

annoyed

How many times the word 'annoyed' appears in the text?

your name?" "Matilda," answered Mrs. Wragge, in a state of the densest bewilderment. "Nothing of the sort!" cried the captain, fiercely. "How dare you tell me your name's Matilda? Your name is Julia. Who am I?--Hold that basket of sandwiches straight, or I'll pitch it into the sea!--Who am I?" "I don't know," said Mrs. Wragge, meekly taking refuge in the negative side of the question this time. "Sit down!" said her husband, pointing to the low garden wall of North Shingles Villa. "More to the right! More still! That will do. You don't know?" repeated the captain, sternly confronting his wife as soon as he had contrived, by seating her, to place her face on a level with his own. "Don't let me hear you say that a second time. Don't let me have a woman who doesn't know who I am to operate on my beard to-morrow morning. Look at me! More to the left--more still--that will do. Who am I? I'm Mr. Bygrave--Christian name, Thomas. Who are you? You're Mrs. Bygrave--Christian name, Julia. Who is that young lady who traveled with you from London? That young lady is Miss Bygrave--Christian name, Susan. I'm her clever uncle Tom; and you're her addle-headed aunt Julia. Say it all over to me instantly, like the Catechism! What is your name?" "Spare my poor head!" pleaded Mrs. Wragge. "Oh, please spare my poor head till I've got the stage-coach out of it!" "Don't distress her," said Magdalen, joining them at that moment. "She will learn it in time. Come into the house." Captain Wragge shook his wary head once more. "We are beginning badly," he said, with less politeness than usual. "My wife's stupidity stands in our way already." They went into the house. Magdalen was perfectly satisfied with all the captain's arrangements; she accepted the room which he had set apart for her; approved of the woman servant whom he had engaged; presented herself at tea-time the moment she was summoned but still showed no interest whatever in the new scene around her. Soon after the table was cleared, although the daylight had not yet faded out, Mrs. Wragge's customary drowsiness after fatigue of any kind overcame her, and she received her husband's orders to leave the room (taking care that she left it "up at heel"), and to betake herself (strictly in the character of Mrs. Bygrave) to bed. As soon as they were left alone, the captain looked hard at Magdalen, and waited to be spoken to. She said nothing. He ventured next on opening the conversation by a polite inquiry after the state of her health. "You look fatigued," he remarked, in his most insinuating manner. "I am afraid the journey has been too much for you." "No," she said, looking out listlessly through the window; "I am not more tired than usual. I am always weary now; weary at going to bed, weary at getting up. If you would like to hear what I have to say to you to-night, I am willing and ready to say it. Can't we go out? It is very hot here; and the droning of those men's voices is beyond all endurance." She pointed through the window to a group of boatmen idling, as only nautical men can idle, against the garden wall. "Is there no quiet walk in this wretched place?" she asked, impatiently. "Can't we breathe a little fresh air, and escape being annoyed by strangers?" "There is perfect solitude within half an hour's walk of the house," replied the ready captain. "Very well. Come out, then." With a weary sigh she took up her straw bonnet and her light muslin scarf from the side-table upon which she had thrown them on coming in, and carelessly led the way to the door. Captain Wragge followed her to the garden gate, then stopped, struck by a new idea. "Excuse me," he whispered, confidentially. "In my wife's existing state of ignorance as to who she is, we had better not trust her alone in the house with a new servant. I'll privately turn the key on her, in case she wakes before we come back. Safe bind, safe find--you know the proverb!--I will be with you again in a moment." He hastened back to the house, and Magdalen seated herself on the garden wall to await his return. She had hardly settled herself in that position when two gentlemen walking together, whose approach along the public path she had not previously noticed, passed close by her. The dress of one of the two strangers showed him to be a clergyman. His companion's station in life was less easily discernible to ordinary observation. Practiced eyes would probably have seen enough in his look, his manner, and his walk to show that he was a sailor. He was a man in the prime of life; tall, spare, and muscular; his face sun-burned to a deep brown; his black hair just turning gray; his eyes dark, deep and firm--the eyes of a man with an iron resolution and a habit of command. He was the nearest of the two to Magdalen, as he and his friend passed the place where she was sitting; and he looked at her with a sudden surprise at her beauty, with an open, hearty, undisguised admiration, which was too evidently sincere, too evidently beyond his own control, to be justly resented as insolent; and yet, in her humor at that moment, Magdalen did resent it. She felt the man's resolute black eyes strike through her with an electric suddenness; and frowning at him impatiently, she turned away her head and looked back at the house. The next moment she glanced round again to see if he had gone on. He had advanced a few yards--had then evidently stopped--and was now in the very act of turning to look at her once more. His companion, the clergyman, noticing that Magdalen appeared to be annoyed, took him familiarly by the arm, and, half in jest, half in earnest, forced him to walk on. The two disappeared round the corner of the next house. As they turned it, the sun-burned sailor twice stopped his companion again, and twice looked back. "A friend of yours?" inquired Captain Wragge, joining Magdalen at that moment. "Certainly not," she replied; "a perfect stranger. He stared at me in the most impertinent manner. Does he belong to this place?" "I'll find out in a moment," said the compliant captain, joining the group of boatmen, and putting his questions right and left, with the easy familiarity which distinguished him. He returned in a few minutes with a complete budget of information. The clergyman was well known as the rector of a place situated some few miles inland. The dark man with him was his wife's brother, commander of a ship in the merchant-service. He was supposed to be staying with his relatives, as their guest for a short time only, preparatory to sailing on another voyage. The clergyman's name was Strickland, and the merchant-captain's name was Kirke; and that was all the boatmen knew about either of them. "It is of no consequence who they are," said Magdalen, carelessly. "The man's rudeness merely annoyed me for the moment. Let us have done with him. I have something else to think of, and so have you. Where is the solitary walk you mentioned just now? Which way do we go?" The captain pointed southward toward Slaughden, and offered his arm. Magdalen hesitated before she took it. Her eyes wandered away inquiringly to Noel Vanstone's house. He was out in the garden, pacing backward and forward over the little lawn, with his head high in the air, and with Mrs. Lecount demurely in attendance on him, carrying her master's green fan. Seeing this, Magdalen at once took Captain Wragge's right arm, so as to place herself nearest to the garden when they passed it on their walk. "The eyes of our neighbors are on us; and the least your niece can do is to take your arm," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Come! let us go on." "They are looking this way," whispered the captain. "Shall I introduce you to Mrs. Lecount?" "Not to-night," she answered. "Wait, and hear what I have to say to you first." They passed the garden wall. Captain Wragge took off his hat with a smart flourish, and received a gracious bow from Mrs. Lecount in return. Magdalen saw the housekeeper survey her face, her figure, and her dress, with that reluctant interest, that distrustful curiosity, which women feel in observing each other. As she walked on beyond the house, the sharp voice of Noel Vanstone reached her through the evening stillness. "A fine girl, Lecount," she heard him say. "You know I am a judge of that sort of thing--a fine girl!" As those words were spoken, Captain Wragge looked round at his companion in sudden surprise. Her hand was trembling violently on his arm, and her lips were fast closed with an expression of speechless pain. Slowly and in silence the two walked on until they reached the southern limit of the houses, and entered on a little wilderness of shingle and withered grass--the desolate end of Aldborough, the lonely beginning of Slaughden. It was a dull, airless evening. Eastward, was the gray majesty of the sea, hushed in breathless calm; the horizon line invisibly melting into the monotonous, misty sky; the idle ships shadowy and still on the idle water. Southward, the high ridge of the sea dike, and the grim, massive circle of a martello tower reared high on its mound of grass, closed the view darkly on all that lay beyond. Westward, a lurid streak of sunset glowed red in the dreary heaven, blackened the fringing trees on the far borders of the great inland marsh, and turned its little gleaming water-pools to pools of blood. Nearer to the eye, the sullen flow of the tidal river Alde ebbed noiselessly from the muddy banks; and nearer still, lonely and unprosperous by the bleak water-side, lay the lost little port of Slaughden, with its forlorn wharfs and warehouses of decaying wood, and its few scattered coasting-vessels deserted on the oozy river-shore. No fall of waves was heard on the beach, no trickling of waters bubbled audibly from the idle stream. Now and then the cry of a sea-bird rose from the region of the marsh; and at intervals, from farmhouses far in the inland waste, the faint winding of horns to call the cattle home traveled mournfully through the evening calm. Magdalen drew her hand from the captain's arm, and led the way to the mound of the martello tower. "I am weary of walking," she said. "Let us stop and rest here." She seated herself on the slope, and resting on her elbow, mechanically pulled up and scattered from her into the air the tufts of grass growing under her hand. After silently occupying herself in this way for some minutes, she turned suddenly on Captain Wragge. "Do I surprise you?" she asked, with a startling abruptness. "Do you find me changed?" The captain's ready tact warned him that the time had come to be plain with her, and to reserve his flowers of speech for a more appropriate occasion. "If you ask the question, I must answer it," he replied. "Yes, I do find you changed." She pulled up another tuft of grass. "I suppose you can guess the reason?" she said. The captain was wisely silent. He only answered by a bow. "I have lost all care for myself," she went on, tearing faster and faster at the tufts of grass. "Saying that is not saying much, perhaps, but it may help you to understand me. There are things I would have died sooner than do at one time--things it would have turned me cold to think of. I don't care now whether I do them or not. I am nothing to myself; I am no more interested in myself than I am in these handfuls of grass. I suppose I have lost something. What is it? Heart? Conscience? I don't know. Do you? W hat nonsense I am talking! Who cares what I have lost? It has gone; and there's an end of it. I suppose my outside is the best side of me--and that's left, at any rate. I have not lost my good looks, have I? There! there! never mind answering; don't trouble yourself to pay me compliments. I have been admired enough to-day. First the sailor, and then Mr. Noel Vanstone--enough for any woman's vanity, surely! Have I any right to call myself a woman? Perhaps not: I am only a girl in my teens. Oh, me, I feel as if I was forty!" She scattered the last fragments of grass to the winds; and turning her back on the captain, let her head droop till her cheek touched the turf bank. "It feels soft and friendly," she said, nestling to it with a hopeless tenderness horrible to see. "It doesn't cast me off. Mother Earth! The only mother I have left!" Captain Wragge looked at her in silent surprise. Such experience of humanity as he possessed was powerless to sound to its depths the terrible self-abandonment which had burst its way to the surface in her reckless words--which was now fast hurrying her to actions more reckless still. "Devilish odd!" he thought to himself, uneasily. "Has the loss of her lover turned her brain?" He considered for a minute longer and then spoke to her. "Leave it till to-morrow," suggested the captain confidentially. "You are a little tired to-night. No hurry, my dear girl--no hurry." She raised her head instantly, and looked round at him with the same angry resolution, with the same desperate defiance of herself, which he had seen in her face on the memorable day at York when she had acted before him for the first time. "I came here to tell you what is in my mind," she said; "and I _will_ tell it!" She seated herself upright on the slope; and clasping her hands round her knees, looked out steadily, straight before her, at the slowly darkening view. In that strange position, she waited until she had composed herself, and then addressed the captain, without turning her head to look round at him, in these words: "When you and I first met," she began, abruptly, "I tried hard to keep my thoughts to myself. I know enough by this time to know that I failed. When I first told you at York that Michael Vanstone had ruined us, I believe you guessed for yourself that I, for one, was determined not to submit to it. Whether you guessed or not, it is so. I left my friends with that determination in my mind; and I feel it in me now stronger, ten times stronger, than ever." "Ten times stronger than ever," echoed the captain. "Exactly so--the natural result of firmness of character." "No--the natural result of having nothing else to think of. I had something else to think of before you found me ill in Vauxhall Walk. I have nothing else to think of now. Remember that, if you find me for the future always harping on the same string. One question first. Did you guess what I meant to do on that morning when you showed me the newspaper, and when I read the account of Michael Vanstone's death?" "Generally," replied Captain Wragge--"I guessed, generally, that you proposed dipping your hand into his purse and taking from it (most properly) what was your own. I felt deeply hurt at the time by your not permitting me to assist you. Why is she so reserved with me? (I remarked to myself)--why is she so unreasonably reserved?" "You shall have no reserve to complain of now," pursued Magdalen. "I tell you plainly, if events had not happened as they did, you _would_ have assisted me. If Michael Vanstone had not died, I should have gone to Brighton, and have found my way safely to his acquaintance under an assumed name. I had money enough with me to live on respectably for many months together. I would have employed that time--I would have waited a whole year, if necessary, to destroy Mrs. Lecount's influence over him--and I would have ended by getting that influence, on my own terms, into my own hands. I had the advantage of years, the advantage of novelty, the advantage of downright desperation, all on my side, and I should have succeeded. Before the year was out--before half the year was out--you should have seen Mrs. Lecount dismissed by her master, and you should have seen me taken into the house in her place, as Michael Vanstone's adopted daughter--as the faithful friend--who had saved him from an adventuress in his old age. Girls no older than I am have tried deceptions as hopeless in appearance as mine, and have carried them through to the end. I had my story ready; I had my plans all considered; I had the weak point in that old man to attack in my way, which Mrs. Lecount had found out before me to attack in hers, and I tell you again I should have succeeded." "I think you would," said the captain. "And what next?" "Mr. Michael Vanstone would have changed his man of business next. You would have succeeded to the place; and those clever speculations on which he was so fond of venturing would have cost him the fortunes of which he had robbed my sister and myself. To the last farthing, Captain Wragge, as certainly as you sit there, to the last farthing! A bold conspiracy, a shocking deception--wasn't it? I don't care! Any conspiracy, any deception, is justified to my conscience by the vile law which has left us helpless. You talked of my reserve just now. Have I dropped it at last? Have I spoken out at the eleventh hour?" The captain laid his hand solemnly on his heart, and launched himself once more on his broadest flow of language. "You fill me with unavailing regret," he said. "If that old man had lived, what a crop I might have reaped from him! What enormous transactions in moral agriculture it might have been my privilege to carry on! _Ars longa,_" said Captain Wragge, pathetically drifting into Latin--"_vita brevis!_ Let us drop a tear on the lost opportunities of the past, and try what the present can do to console us. One conclusion is clear to my mind--the experiment you proposed to try with Mr. Michael Vanstone is totally hopeless, my dear girl, in the case of his son. His son is impervious to all common forms of pecuniary temptation. You may trust my solemn assurance," continued the captain, speaking with an indignant recollection of the answer to his advertisement in the Times, "when I inform you that Mr. Noel Vanstone is emphatically the meanest of mankind." "I can trust my own experience as well," said Magdalen. "I have seen him, and spoken to him--I know him better than you do. Another disclosure, Captain Wragge, for your private ear! I sent you back certain articles of costume when they had served the purpose for which I took them to London. That purpose was to find my way to Noel Vanstone in disguise, and to judge for myself of Mrs. Lecount and her master. I gained my object; and I tell you again, I know the two people in that house yonder whom we have now to deal with better than you do." Captain Wragge expressed the profound astonishment, and asked the innocent questions appropriate to the mental condition of a person taken completely by surprise. "Well," he resumed, when Magdalen had briefly answered him, "and what is the result on your own mind? There must be a result, or we should not be here. You see your way? Of course, my dear girl, you see your way?" "Yes," she said, quickly. "I see my way." The captain drew a little nearer to her, with eager curiosity expressed in every line of his vagabond face. "Go on," he said, in an anxious whisper; "pray go on." She looked out thoughtfully into the gathering darkness, without answering, without appearing to have heard him. Her lips closed, and her clasped hands tightened mechanically round her knees. "There is no disguising the fact," said Captain Wragge, warily rousing her into speaking to him. "The son is harder to deal with than the father--" "Not in my way," she interposed, suddenly. "Indeed!" said the captain. "Well! they say there is a short cut to everything, if we only look long enough to find it. You have looked long enough, I suppose, and the natural result has followed--you have found it." "I have not troubled myself to look; I have found it without looking." "The deuce you have!" cried Captain Wragge, in great perplexity. "My dear girl, is my view of your present position leading me altogether astray? As I understand it, here is Mr. Noel Vanstone in possession of your fortune and your sister's, as his father was, and determined to keep it, as his father was?" "Yes." "And here are you--quite helpless to get it by persuasion--quite helpless to get it by law--just as resolute in his ease as you were in his father's, to take it by stratagem in spite of him?" "Just as resolute. Not for the sake of the fortune--mind that! For the sake of the right." "Just so. And the means of coming at that right which were hard with the father--who was not a miser--are easy with the son, who is?" "Perfectly easy." "Write me down an Ass for the first time in my life!" cried the captain, at the end of his patience. "Hang me if I know what you mean!" She looked round at him for the first time--looked him straight and steadily in the face. "I will tell you what I mean," she said. "I mean to marry him." Captain Wragge started up on his knees, and stopped on them, petrified by astonishment. "Remember what I told you," said Magdalen, looking away from him again. "I have lost all care for myself. I have only one end in life now, and the sooner I reach it--and die--the better. If--" She stopped, altered her position a little, and pointed with one hand to the fast-ebbing stream beneath her, gleaming dim in the darkening twilight--"if I had been what I once was, I would have thrown myself into that river sooner than do what I am going to do now. As it is, I trouble myself no longer; I weary my mind with no more schemes. The short way and the vile way lies before me. I take it, Captain Wragge, and marry him." "Keeping him in total ignorance of who you are?" said the captain, slowly rising to his feet, and slowly moving round, so as to see her face. "Marrying him as my niece, Miss Bygrave?" "As your niece, Miss Bygrave." "And after the marriage--?" His voice faltered, as he began the question, and he left it unfinished. "After the marriage," she said, "I shall stand in no further need of your assistance." The captain stooped as she gave him that answer, looked close at her, and suddenly drew back, without uttering a word. He walked away some paces, and sat down again doggedly on the grass. If Magdalen could have seen his face in the dying light, his face would have startled her. For the first time, probably, since his boyhood, Captain Wragge had changed color. He was deadly pale. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "Perhaps you are waiting to hear what terms I have to offer? These are my terms; I pay all our expenses here; and when we part, on the day of the marriage, you take a farewell gift away with you of two hundred pounds. Do you promise me your assistance on those conditions?" "What am I expected to do?" he asked, with a furtive glance at her, and a sudden distrust in his voice. "You are expected to preserve my assumed character and your own," she answered, "and you are to prevent any inquiries of Mrs. Lecount's from discovering who I really am. I ask no more. The rest is my responsibility--not yours." "I have nothing to do with what happens--at any time, or in any place--after the marriage?" "Nothing whatever." "I may leave you at the church door if I please?" "At the church door, with your fee in your pocket." "Paid from the money in your own possession?" "Certainly! How else should I pay it?" Captain Wragge took off his hat, and passed his handkerchief over his face with an air of relief. "Give me a minute to consider it," he said. "As many minutes as you like," she rejoined, reclining on the bank in her former position, and returning to her former occupation of tearing up the tufts of grass and flinging them out into the air. The captain's reflections were not complicated by any unnecessary divergences from the contemplation of his own position to the contemplation of Magdalen's. Utterly incapable of appreciating the injury done her by Frank's infamous treachery to his engagement--an injury which had severed her, at one cruel blow, from the aspiration which, delusion though it was, had been the saving aspiration of her life--Captain Wragge accepted the simple fact of her despair just as he found it, and then looked straight to the consequences of the proposal which she had made to him. In the prospect _before_ the marriage he saw nothing more serious involved than the practice of a deception, in no important degree different--except in the end to be attained by it--from the deceptions which his vagabond life had long since accustomed him to contemplate and to carry out. In the prospect _after_ the marriage he dimly discerned, through the ominous darkness of the future, the lurking phantoms of Terror and Crime, and the black gulfs behind them of Ruin and Death. A man of boundless audacity and resource, within his own mean limits; beyond those limits, the captain was as deferentially submissive to the majesty of the law as the most harmless man in existence; as cautious in looking after his own personal safety as the veriest coward that ever walked the earth. But one serious question now filled his mind. Could he, on the terms proposed to him, join the conspiracy against Noel Vanstone up to the point of the marriage, and then withdraw from it, without risk of involving himself in the consequences which his experience told him must certainly ensue? Strange as it may seem, his decision in this emergency was mainly influenced by no less a person than Noel Vanstone himself. The captain might have resisted the money-offer which Magdalen had made to him--for the profits of the Entertainment had filled his pockets with more than three times two hundred pounds. But the prospect of dealing a blow in the dark at the man who had estimated his information and himself at the value of a five pound note proved too much for his caution and his self-control. On the small neutral ground of self-importance, the best men and the worst meet on the same terms. Captain Wragge's indignation, when he saw the answer to his advertisement, stooped to no retrospective estimate of his own conduct; he was as deeply offended, as sincerely angry as if he had made a perfectly honorable proposal, and had been rewarded for it by a personal insult. He had been too full of his own grievance to keep it out of his first letter to Magdalen. He had more or less forgotten himself on every subsequent occasion when Noel Vanstone's name was mentioned. And in now finally deciding the course he should take, it is not too much to say that the motive of money receded, for the first time in his life, into the second place, and the motive of malice carried the day. "I accept the terms," said Captain Wragge, getting briskly on his legs again. "Subject, of course, to the conditions agreed on between us. We part on the wedding-day. I don't ask where you go: you don't ask where I go. From that time forth we are strangers to each other." Magdalen rose slowly from the mound. A hopeless depression, a sullen despair, showed itself in her look and manner. She refused the captain's offered hand; and her tones, when she answered him, were so low that he could hardly hear her. "We understand each other," she said; "and we can now go back. You may introduce me to Mrs. Lecount to-morrow." "I must ask a few questions first," said the captain, gravely. "There are more risks to be run in this matter, and more pitfalls in our way, than you seem to suppose. I must know the whole history of your morning call on Mrs. Lecount before I put you and that woman on speaking terms with each other." "Wait till to-morrow," she broke out impatiently. "Don't madden me by talking about it to-night." The captain said no more. They turned their faces toward Aldborough, and walked slowly back. By the time they reached the houses night had overtaken them. Neither moon nor stars were visible. A faint noiseless breeze blowing from the land had come with the darkness. Magdalen paused on the lonely public walk to breathe the air more freely. After a while she turned her face from the breeze and looked out toward the sea. The immeasurable silence of the calm waters, lost in the black void of night, was awful. She stood looking into the darkness, as if its mystery

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your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

trip

How many times the word 'trip' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

sighs

How many times the word 'sighs' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

beat

How many times the word 'beat' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

tone

How many times the word 'tone' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

though

How many times the word 'though' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

minutely

How many times the word 'minutely' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

magazine

How many times the word 'magazine' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

wants

How many times the word 'wants' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

glance

How many times the word 'glance' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

or

How many times the word 'or' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

die

How many times the word 'die' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

feather

How many times the word 'feather' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

starts

How many times the word 'starts' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

butcher

How many times the word 'butcher' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

team

How many times the word 'team' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

already

How many times the word 'already' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

week

How many times the word 'week' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

approaching

How many times the word 'approaching' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

sword

How many times the word 'sword' appears in the text?

your pulse? RICK Nah, I'm fine. I had a little chest cramp during the last song, but I worked through it. She smiles at this. LEIGH Come on, let's sit this one out. I need a breather. They move to the bar and Rick starts DRYING HIMSELF with a stack of cocktail napkins. LEIGH (CONT'D) So what's up with the ring? He looks at his finger, then back at her. RICK Um...have you ever heard of a hall pass? CUT TO: EXT. BALL TEAM BEACH HOUSE - NIGHT Grace pulls up in her Camry and gets out. She hears MUSIC coming from inside and hesitates a BEAT before walking nervously onto the porch and KNOCKING. A moment later Gerry appears in the doorway. GERRY There she is! Come on in, I'm mixing up some margaronis. We lost our final game, but I got four hits! 94. GRACE Oh. Great. Uh, where is everyone? GERRY They all went out to party--now get in here! But Grace stays on the porch. GRACE Gerry, I'm sorry but I can't stay. GERRY What? Grace hasn't been in this situation in a long time and it shows. Gerry steps out onto the porch looking concerned. GERRY (CONT'D) Is everything okay? GRACE Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, but... (holds up gift box) .I can't accept this. GERRY Why not? Grace does a double-take. GRACE Gerry, I'm a married woman. Gerry nods at this, maybe a little hurt. She hands him the box and he reluctantly accepts it. GERRY Um... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Grace. It's just that...I really like you. GRACE I like you, too, Gerry, and you didn't make me uncomfortable. She smiles at him and he forces a smile back, and there's some serious eye-contact, and then BAM! They DIVE AT EACH OTHER and start SUCKING FACE LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. As they continue to MAUL EACH OTHER, they STUMBLE INTO THE HOUSE, and we CUT TO: INT. ENTER THE DRAGON NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT Rick and Leigh are leaning against the bar. LEIGH So...you're married? 95 RICK I wasn't deliberately hiding it. He holds up his ring hand. LEIGH Yeah, I just thought your wife had died or something and you were wearing it out of respect. RICK (UNCOMFORTABLE) Uh, nope. She's still hangin' in there. Just then, Coakley PULLS RICK ASIDE. COAKLEY Come on, you're not gonna close the sale here--let's move this clambake back to my place. RICK Okay, but what am I gonna do there? COAKLEY What do you mean, what are you gonna do? I've got a house with bedrooms--do the math. When it doesn't work out with her--which it won't--there's going to be a bunch of other back-up chicks there. Rick nods then turns to Leigh. RICK My buddy's inviting everybody back to his crib. LEIGH Sounds cool. As they walk toward the exit, we CUT TO: ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT INT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS HALLWAY - NIGHT Fred and Missy are walking down the hallway toward his room. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I've got to be honest, Fred... I'm not really sure what we're doing here. FRED What do you mean? We're hangin', we're connecting--that's what friends do. Especially if they want to take it to the next level where they can call each other 'good friends.' 96. He comes to his room and starts to unlock the door. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You're married, Fred. FRED Ah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fred opens the door but Missy stays in the hall. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What does blah-blah mean? You are still married, right? FRED Happily. Look, I don't want to get into all the details, but my wife gave me this one-time deal where I get to be with another woman. He opens the door wide. She looks at him for a BEAT. MISSY FRANKENFIELD I thought we were going to the hotel bar? FRED We are. There's a mini-bar in my room. You better hurry up, it's last call. Fred smiles. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your flippin' mind? Fred loses the smile. FRED Um... MISSY FRANKENFIELD Are you out of your mind?! FRED I'm going to be honest with you-- your tone right now is scaring me. MISSY FRANKENFIELD You call me up for the first time in your life, claim you have some kind of emergency, and it turns out that you just want to screw me?! FRED Or not. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Well, screw you, Fred! She starts walking down the hallway. Fred nods, unfazed. 97. FRED Nail on the head! She turns and glares at him. MISSY FRANKENFIELD What? FRED What you just said--I had that coming. Big time. Fred hangs his head. FRED (CONT'D) (SOFTLY) Seriously, Missy, I...I don't know what's gotten into me this week. I think I must be having some kind of mid-life crisis or something because I've been acting like a real jackass. (SIGHS Anyway ease forgive me. I really am very, very sorry and ashamed. Missy, standing a few feet away, finally calms down. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Okay. Whatever. FRED Thank you. LONG BEAT. FRED (CONT'D) So ... . you want to come in for that drink? He arches an eyebrow. MISSY FRANKENFIELD Fuck you, Fred! Missy STORMS away. FRED (TO SELF ) 'No thank you' would have sufficed. Fred walks into his room and closes the door. INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS Fred goes to the mini-bar and pours himself a drink. He looks around the room. The week's over and he's failed miserably. He sits on the bed. Alone. Then a KNOCK. Fred gets up and opens the door. 98. FRED Hi. May I help you? REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS Paige's Aunt Meg. She's wearing a skirt and low-cut tank top and has cougar written all over her. AUNT MEG Rick, my name's Meg. I'm your babysitter Paige's aunt, and I just wanted to come over here and tell you this: They don't make men like you anymore. She smiles. FRED Oh. Well, thank you. (BEAT) Would you like to come in? CUT TO: EXT. BALL CLUB BEACH HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT A guilt-ridden Grace is just finishing GETTING DRESSED when Gerry comes out of the bathroom buttoning up his shirt. GERRY Everything okay? GRACE Yeah. Yeah. It's just ...no, everything's not okay. GERRY What? He moves close to her and she grows uncomfortable. GRACE Look, you're a great cguy, Gerry, and you're very charming and very sweet and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, but...well, what,just happened can never happen again. Gerry looks confused. GERRY Oh. GRACE I know it's probably hard for you to understand but...I love my husband. GERRY So? What does that have to do with anything? Fate threw us together and we went with it--isn't that what life's all about? 99. Grace looks at him, recognizing the youth and triteness of his words. GRACE Not always. (BEAT) It wasn't fair to my husband... and it wasn't fair to you because this could never become anything more than just.. .what it was. She looks at him and shrugs apologetically. Gerry BARKS out a LAUGH. GERRY I know that. GRACE You do? GERRY (BIG SMILE) Of course I do. Jeez. I mean, no offense, but let's face it, you're a lot older than me. She flinches, a little embarrassed. A quick reality check for Grace. GRACE Right. GERRY I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, I didn't think we were going to start dating, you know? Could you imagine the looks we'd get? It'd be like Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends--except in reverse. Gerry CHUCKLES. GERRY (CONT'D) You'd be Hugh Hefner. GRACE Yeah, I got that part. Gerry looks at his watch. GERRY Ooh, I gotta get going. We have kind of a team meeting in like twenty minutes. Gerry sees Grace glance at the clock: 12:15 A.M. GERRY CONT'D It's, uh, kind o a tradition that we always get together on the night of the last game. It would probably be uncool if I missed it. 100. GRACE You don't have to explain. GERRY Seriously, though, thanks for everything--that was awesome. He holds up his hand and she diligently HIGH-FIVES HIM. Then Gerry WALKS OUT THE DOOR. Grace sits there alone for a moment. We PUSH IN ON HER and we hear Gerry's CAR START OUTSIDE, and when Grace STARTS TO CRY, we CUT TO: EXT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT This is a Tudor home in an upscale Brookline neighborhood. We can hear 'Rage Against The Machine' BLASTING from the street. There's thirty or so cars out front and PEOPLE are still arriving. INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SAME The place is JAMMING. It's a nice house but under-furnished in a bachelor pad kind of way. Rick and Leigh are in a corner drinking beers. LEIGH I guess I still have a lot to get out of my system before I do the marriage trip. I'm one of those people who wants to try everything once before I die. RICK (BLURTING OUT) Have you ever been with a married guy? Leigh pauses, but she doesn't flinch. LEIGH No. RICK Neither have I. Rick winces, but Leigh smiles at him. It's the moment of truth. RICK (CONT'D) I'd like to help you take being with a married guy off your list of things to do before you die. LEIGH You would? RICK Yes. Leigh gets close. 101. LEIGH I don't want to be a home-wrecker. RICK I've got a one-time pass, remember? LEIGH That wasn't just a line? RICK No. It's for real. Leigh seems intrigued. She moves closer still, takes his hand. LEIGH So where can we go to talk some more about this? RICK (NERVOUS) Um, Coakley has a game room upstairs. We could.. .talk there. WANNABE (O.S.) Leigh! Rick and Leigh look over to see an AGITATED Wannabe forcing his way through the crowd. WANNABE (CONT'D) Where have you...? Why didn't you...? You knew this was my big night! How could you just--? (turns away, emotional) Look, can I please talk to you in private? Now. Leigh looks apologetically at Rick. LEIGH Can you give me a second? RICK Sure. Wannabe and Leigh walk a few feet away and Rick watches them have an ANIMATED CONVERSATION. It appears Wannabe may even be crying. Finally, Wannabe storms across the room but when he gets to the door, he looks back at Leigh. WANNABE Well? Are you coming? Leigh SIGHS, then approaches Rick. LEIGH I'm sorry, Rick. I have to go deal with this. Rick can't believe what's happening. 102. RICK Really? Now? I thought you said he wasn't your boyfriend. LEIGH He's not...but he is a friend. Leigh glances at the broken-down Wannabe standing there at the door, then turns back to Rick. LEIGH (CONT'D) I'm sorry. Before Rick can stop her, Leigh LEAVES THE PARTY with Wannabe. After a LONG BEAT, Rick slides down into a chair, DEVASTATED. CUT TO: INT. BEACH COTTAGE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Maggie is spilling her guts to Rick Coleman as he stands over the stove MAKING PANCAKES. MAGGIE .And he hasn't even spent one night in his own bed this week. RICK COLEMAN Let me get this straight--you gave him his freedom and now you're mad that he's acting free? This logic clearly stings Maggie. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Hey, I'm sure there's an explanation. Maybe he took a trip somewhere? MAGGIE I called his assistant--he's been in the office almost everyday. RICK COLEMAN Look, Maggie, for all you know your husband's been working at a sou kitchen, sleeping in his car al week, and he's only gotten laid two or three times at most. She looks up and forces a smile. MAGGIE Ha-ha. Maggie checks her watch. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Jeez, I wonder what's taking Grace so long? 103. RICK COLEMAN Well, if she went over to break the kid's heart, the least she could do is lend a sympathetic ear. He flips a pancake onto a plate. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Prepare yourself for heaven. She reaches for the plate, but he slaps her hand away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) Not so fast, lady. I'm not finished. You have not lived until you've had my steaming hot blueberry pancakes... He pulls a carton of vanilla ice cream out of a bag. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) .A la mode. Maggie smiles. MAGGIE Oh My-lanta. RICK COLEMAN And to wash it all down... Rick reaches into the bag and pulls out a DESSERT WINE. Off Maggie's smile, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - NIGHT A glum Rick is walking through the PACKED PARTY when he bumps into Baker and Hog-Head standing around a keg with a GROUP OF GUYS. RICK Hey. . .what are you guys doing here? HOG-HEAD We're here for the hall pass. RICK Really? I thought you guys had given up on us? BAKER We did. We're here with them. He nods toward RICK LEARY and WILLY BOSHANE, both early 40's and paunchy. RICK What are you talking about? 104. BAKER When Leary and Boshane heard about your guy's hall pass, they convinced their wives to give them one, too. A smiling Leary tries to HIGH-FIVE Rick, but he's having none of it. He turns to Baker, livid. RICK You weren't supposed to tell anyone about the hall pass! LEARY They didn't say anything. Our wives heard about it at the pool. RICK No! At the pool?! Rick rubs his face, distressed. BOSHANE Yep. And then about three days ago-- after some hard-core negotiating-- we managed to push the bill through. The guys LAUGH. Rick can hardly believe what he's spawned. RICK Really? So...how's it going? BOSHANE Solid. Very solid. LEARY We're building mucho momentumo. Baker makes a JERK-OFF MOTION. LEARY (CONT'D) (ANNOYED) Hey, Baker, a hall pass ain't just about sex, you know. BOSHANE That's right. It's about going bowling and, uh, staying up late, and being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. RICK Haven't gotten laid yet, huh? BOSHANE (DISPIRITED) It's a lot tougher than we thought it would be. Just then Gary comes around a corner. 105. GARY Hey, dudes, there's like ten very bangable chicks out on the back deck--let's go! Leary HOLDS UP HIS BEER. LEARY To freedom! The guys TAP their beer cups, then EXIT toward the back deck. A dejected and defeated Rick watches them go, then turns and pushes his way through the crowd to the front door. As he OPENS THE DOOR to leave, he finds himself FACE-TO-FACE WITH LEIGH. LEIGH Hey, where are you going? RICK What are you doing...? I thought you'd left. LEIGH No. I told you, I just had to talk him off the ledge. I calmed him down and sent him on his way. RICK Oh. Uh, great. LEIGH So where's that game room? I thought we were gonna play some games. She smiles and takes his hand and as they walk away, we go... INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT Rick and Leigh walk down the hall to the game room. He opens the door and flips on the light. THEIR POV - there's a pool table, a few pinball machines, a bar, and a bed. LEIGH I'll be right back--I just have to use the bathroom. Rick nods, then watches as Leigh walks off and disappears into the bathroom. He takes a DEEP BREATH. This is it. Just then he hears O.S. LAUGHTER. Rick heads down the hallway and pushes open a door. COAKLEY (O.S.) Hey. REVERSE ANGLE reveals Coakley SITTING ALL ALONE in a small study off the hall. He has a bowl of Cap'n Crunch on his lap and is watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show. 106. RICK Hey. How come you're not downstairs partying? Coakley gives him a sad, worn-out smile. COAKLEY All partied out, pal. Rick nods, understanding. Coakley LAUGHS once again at the TV. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Man, that Barney Fife still kills me. He looks back to Rick. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Hey, I was thinking about this hall- pass business. It's really ironic, isn't it? Rick glances down the hall to see if Leigh has returned. RICK How's that? COAKLEY Well think about it. There's two kinds of guys who cheat on their wives: The guy who does it behind her back, and a guy like you who has his wife's permission. RICK Well it's not really cheating if I have permission. COAKLEY Yeah, whatever. The point is, if you asked a hundred people who the better CJuy is, ninety-nine of 'em would pick you, because you're being honest--there's no deceit involved. Rick is growing uncomfortable. COAKLEY (CONT'D) But the funny thing is, the other guy, the cheater, the bad guy, he has to live with all that guilt and anxiety, while his wife's running around happy as a clam because she doesn't know anything. And you, the good guy, you've got no guilt at all because you just laid it all on your wife's shoulders. RICK Well I didn't really think of it LIKE-- 107. COAKLEY It's like she's your guilt Sherpa! Coakley CHUCKLES and Rick deflates. COAKLEY (CONT'D) Funny, huh? RICK (WEAKLY) Yeah. COAKLEY And that, my friend, is why you are a genius. As Rick lets this all sink in, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Paige's Aunt Meg is sitting on the couch. Her legs are crossed revealing a lot of skin. Fred hands her a glass of wine and sits beside her. FRED Cheers. They CLINK glasses. AUNT MEG Rick, I hope you don't mind me tracking you down--Paige told me where you were staying. FRED Please. Not at all. AUNT MEG You've been very sweet to her. Fred waves her off. FRED Hey, she's a good kid. I do what I can for the kids. Aunt Meg moves in a little closer, squints at him sweetly. AUNT MEG She told me everything. And I have to say, I was very impressed. FRED Hm? AUNT MEG I know she tried to hook-up with you--twice in fact--and that you set her straight both times. Fred hadn't heard this from Rick and is a little confused. 108. FRED Uh...hook-up? AUNT MEG (SMILES) Rick, enough with the chivalry. Paige wanted to sleep with you and you didn't take advantage of her. I'm just saying that's very cool. He shrugs modestly. FRED Well... she's a kid and kids get crushes. I remember in tenth grade I had the biggest crush on my French teacher--thank God Mr. LeClaire was professional enough to only date seniors. Meg GIGGLES. AUNT MEG I'm serious, it takes a certain kind of guy to say no to a beautiful young girl like that-- especially since you have your wi e's permission now. Meg shoots him a knowing smile and puts her glass down. AUNT MEG (CONT'D) I like that, Rick. You have morals. She leans in and KISSES HIS NECK. Fred glances down at her breasts. FRED Hey, all you have in this world is your word. As Aunt Meg CLIMBS ON TOP OF FRED, we CUT TO: INT. COAKLEY'S HOUSE - GAME ROOM - NIGHT Rick ENTERS to find Leigh playing a pinball machine. Leigh turns and smiles at Rick. RICK Leigh, I gotta split. LEIGH What? RICK (NERVOUS) Yeah, I kind of hit a wall. She can hardly believe her ears. 109. LEIGH Really? Are you feeling okay? You're not mad because I went outside with my friend, are you? RICK No, no, no. Look, I shouldn't be doing this. I have.. .you know, commitments. Leigh nods at this, then unties a shoulder strap and her DRESS FALLS TO THE FLOOR. Suddenly she's NAKED before him and she's PERFECT. RICK (CONT'D) (WEAKLY) Um, you dropped something. For a moment nobody moves. We can almost hear Rick's heart beat. Then Leigh STEPS CLOSER to him and Rick instinctively leans back. LEIGH Relax. Don't think so much. You're gonna have your wife for the rest of your life, but tonight. . .you have me. Leigh smiles. And it's the kind of smile you only get two or three times in your life, if you're lucky, and probably never from a woman this beautiful. She reaches down and UNBUCKLES HIS PANTS, then she PULLS OFF HIS SHIRT. They stand face-to-face now, the middle-aged guy and the young beauty, and it's happening exactly the way Rick had hoped it would, the dream. She presses her body against his and STARTS TO KISS HIS NECK, her hand DISAPPEARING SOMEWHERE BELOW HIS WAIST. Then she leans her head AGAINST HIS CHEST. As he looks down at her, we PUSH IN on a suddenly conflicted Rick. RICK Nope. I can't do this. He reaches for his shirt. LEIGH What are you doing? RICK I'm sorry. She stares at him, confused, as he buckles his pants. LEIGH Your wife didn't give you a hallway permission slip, did she? 110. RICK Yes, she did, but... look, you're insanely beautiful and pathologically sexy and every cell in my body is telling me to dust do this, but-- Rick points to his chest. RICK (CONT'D) See this area, this spot right here? The first time Maggie and I slept together, back in college, she fell asleep right here. And she left a puddle of drool. And it didn't bother me. It actually felt good. That's when I knew I was going to marry her. (BEAT) And when my kids--Emma and Gunnar-- when they were babies, this is where they slept. Or sometimes at four o'clock in the morning Emma would just lay there and stare up at me. It was where we first got to know each other. (BEAT) So I'm sorry, Leigh, but as amazing as I think you are...I gotta go home. Rick shrugs apologetically. LEIGH Well, I think you have a screw loose and you're probably going to regret this for the rest of your life, but. . .right on, man. RICK Um...do you want me to give you a ride home? LEIGH No. It's only one-thirty--I'm going back down to the party. Rick raises two fingers. RICK Peace it. LEIGH R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. As they smile at each other one last time, we CUT TO: INT. FRED'S MINIVAN - NIGHT Rick is pulling away from Coakley's house when the car phone RINGS. Rick pushes a button to ANSWER. RICK Hello. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Yes, is this Fred Searing? RICK Oh, uh, no, I'm sorry, he's not here right now. I'm using his car. MAN'S VOICE (V.0.) (ON SPEAKERPHONE) Well, would you know where I could find him? This is Sgt. Polisner of the Massachusetts State Police. As Rick grows alarmed, we CUT TO: INT. RICK & FRED'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Fred is still on the couch with Aunt Meg on the floor in front of him. Fred's PANTS ARE DOWN TO HIS ANKLES, leaving him with only his boxers on. Meg KISSES HIS CHEST and STOMACH, then leans back and TAKES OFF HER TANK-TOP, revealing EXTRA-LARGE BAZOOKAS stuffed into a slinky bra. AUNT MEG I'm attracted to men with integrity. FRED Thanks--wow, you got great jugs. Meg takes Fred's hand and leads him toward the bed (with his pants still at his ankles), Fred WADDLING LIKE A PENGUIN. AUNT MEG Moral-guy's a tit-man, huh? FRED (SHRUGGING) Well, I grew up in the midwest. She pushes him down on the bed and Fred quickly kicks off his pants and shoes (but keeps his boxers on.) Meg TACKLES him and the two of them start to roll around UNDER THE COVERS. An O.S. Fred seems to be working his way down her stomach. AUNT MEG Oh yes! Rick... please...I want you to make love to me. Just then Rick BURSTS INTO THE ROOM, out of breath. Fred and Meg come up from under the covers. (Fred is at waist-level on her.) RICK Fred, I need to talk to you! Meg GLARES down at Fred, confused. 112. AUNT MEG Fred? I thought you were Rick?! RICK I'm Rick. Fred cowers guiltily. FRED Please don't judge me. As Aunt Meg KARATE KICKS Fred in the face, we CUT TO: EXT. HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATER Fred, now dressed, hurries across the parking lot with Rick on his heels. Fred has BLOOD-STAINED TISSUE stuffed up his nose. FRED What did they tell you? Is Grace gonna be okay? RICK All I know is she was in a car accident and they rushed her to the hospital. FRED Oh my God... Suddenly they hear O.S. GLASS SHATTERING. They look up and REACT. THEIR POV - From fifty yards across the parking lot, they can see that Fred's mini-van's windshield has just been BASHED IN by the BAT-WIELDING Wannabe. On the side of the vehicle is spray-painted: HORNY OLD MAN. FRED (CONT'D) Whoa!!! What the hell...?! Wannabe turns to them, a CRAZED LOOK on his face. WANNABE How do you like me now, Splenda- boy? FRED You moron, that's Lny car! His is the one next to it! Wannabe looks over at Rick's Avalon, PULLS OUT A KNIFE, and quickly SLASHES TWO OF RICK'S TIRES. As Rick and Fred RUN TOWARD HIM, Wannabe JUMPS INTO AN OLD BRONCO and PEELS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT. BACK ON Rick and Fred as they slow down and CATCH THEIR BREATHS. 113. RICK Nice job, Fred. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT The mini-van blows by a sign that reads 'CAPE COD - 60 MILES.' INT. MINI-VAN - SAME The WINDSHIELD IS GONE and the wind blows back Rick and Fred's hair as if they were on a motorcycle. Fred tries his car phone as he drives. FRED Oh come on! How can a hospital not have a live operator?! RICK It's four in the morning, Fred. Fred hangs up and pounds his steering wheel. FRED What was I thinking?! I had a great wife--a beautiful wife--and now I may lose her.. .because of you. RICK What are you talking about?! You said our wives were living their dreams, with their fancy gas ovens, and that our dream was the hall pass! How can you blame this on me?! FRED I'd never even heard of a hall pass until you flaunted yours in my face! 'Hey, look at me, I've got a hall pass--everyone should have a hall pass!' You ruined my life, Mills! CUT TO: EXT. BEACH COTTAGE - NIGHT Maggie and Rick Coleman sit on the back deck DRINKING WINE. RICK COLEMAN This is a great place. MAGGIE Yeah, my family's had it since I was a kid. We used to come for a week a summer, then two weeks, then a month, then by the time I got to high school we were living here all summer long. 114. RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong here, Maggie. MAGGIE Hm? RICK COLEMAN Something's wrong with a guy who would leave a woman like you alone for this long. MAGGIE (UNCOMFORTABLE) Well, you know...I did give him a hall pass. RICK COLEMAN So what? If you were my girl, I wouldn't have taken it. An awkward moment. Rick touches her hand and Maggie looks away. RICK COLEMAN (CONT'D) You deserve way better. MAGGIE Uh, in Rick's defense, he didn't really even want the hall pass. I kind of forced it on him. RICK COLEMAN Why would you do that? Maggie thinks about this. MAGGIE I don't know. (BEAT) I guess I felt like he wasn't noticing me anymore. j guess I wanted to feel.. .desired again. And the truth is, in my heart, I never thought he'd go through with it. He brushes her hair from her face and they look into each other's eyes. He leans in and she does, too, and right when it looks like THEY MAY KISS, Maggie hesitates as suddenly EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR TO HER. MAGGIE (CONT'D) Oh my God... RICK COLEMAN What? MAGGIE This hall pass ...it wasn't for him. (SOFTLY) It was...for me. And as they hang on that realization, we CUT TO: 115 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT A police cruiser is parked on the highway divider. INT. POLICE CRUISER - SAME Two YOUNG COPS are relaxing with their coffees when the SMASHED-UP MINI-VAN FLIES BY. COP #1 Did you see that? He didn't have a windshield. Cop #2 throws the car into drive and they pull a U-ey and GIVE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred looks regretful. FRED I'm sorry, man, I shouldn't have blamed you for this. I'm the one who dragged you into this thing. RICK No, you didn't. I went willingly. FRED I've been bad, Rick. I've been real bad. RICK We've both been bad. FRED I've been worse. I kissed your babysitter's aunt. RICK That's not so bad. FRED On the vagina. RICK Ooh. They hear a SIREN and Rick looks back to see the cops on their tail. RICK (CONT'D) Oh shit. EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS The battered MINI-VAN blows by the 'WELCOME TO CAPE COD' hedges with the cop car on their tail. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS Fred isn't slowing down. He grows more determined. 116. RICK Pull over, man! FRED No way, I can out-run 'em! RICK No you can't--not in this thing! EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS We see another POLICE CRUISER FISHTAIL OUT OF A SIDE STREET and JOIN THE CHASE. INT. MINI-VAN - CONTINUOUS RICK Oh God, now there's two of 'em! FRED I don't care--I'm not stopping 'til we get there! RICK Are you crazy?! FRED Yeah, I'm crazy! I'm crazy about my wife! EXT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - NIGHT Rick and Fred come SKIDDING UP to the EMERGENCY ROOM ENTRANCE in the graffitied mini-van. INT. POLICE CRUISER - CONTINUOUS The two Young Cops SCREECH to a stop behind the mini-van as the second cruiser flies up behind them. COP #2 We're on! The officers spring from their cars

some

How many times the word 'some' appears in the text?