The Nostalgia Gene

Начало книги

Folks who knew Edgar Evans said he was a strange young man. Certainly he was the darling of the old ladies and the despair of the young. The sternest fathers positively beamed when Edgar called for their daughters, but fellows his own age declared in the authoritative tones of youth that Edgar was a square.

Handsome enough he was. The real reason for all the fuss was Edgar’s manners. The trouble was that he had them.

For Edgar had been orphaned at four by an Oklahoma tornado and raised by his Hoosier grandmother, a dear old lady whose hand had once been kissed by a passing Barrymore. The result was Edgar’s manners. He realized, of course, that one didn’t kiss a lady’s hand these days, but such was Edgar’s gracious way that women always got the impression he was about to.

One parent, in something of a trance after encountering Edgar, summed up the reaction.

"That kid," he told his wife dazedly, "akshully called me sir. Them other punks come aroun' afta Milly, they call me Mac. Too bad that there Edgar was born fifty years too late."

Читать дальше →