【英文原著类】RUDDER GRANGE(鲁德·格兰奇).pdf

RUDDER GRANGE
RUDDER GRANGE
by Frank R. Stockton
1
RUDDER GRANGE
CHAPTER I.
TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF DWELLING HOUSE.
For some months after our marriage, Euphemia and I boarded. But
we did not like it. Indeed, there was no reason why we should like it.
Euphemia said that she never felt at home except when she was out, which
feeling, indicating such an excessively unphilosophic state of mind, was
enough to make me desire to have a home of my own, where, except upon
rare and exceptional occasions, my wife would never care to go out.
If you should want to rent a house, there are three ways to find one.
One way is to advertise; another is to read the advertisements of other
people. This is paratively cheap way. A third method is to apply to
an agent. But none of these plans are worth anything. The proper way is to
know some one who will tell you of a house that will exactly suit you.
Euphemia and I thoroughly investigated this matter, and I know that what
I say is a fact.
We tried all the plans. When we advertised, we had about a dozen
admirable answers, but in these, although everything seemed to suit, the
amount of rent was not named. (None of those in which the rent was
named would do at all.) And when I went to see the owners, or agents of
these suitable houses, they asked much higher rents than those mentioned
in the unavailable answers--and this, notwithstanding the fact that they
always asserted that their terms were either very reasonable or else greatly
reduced on account of the season being advanced. (It was now the
fifteenth of May.)
Euphemia and I once wrote a book,--this was just before we were
married,--in which we told young married people how to go to
housekeeping and how much it would cost them. We knew all about it, for
we had asked several people. Now the prices demanded as yearly rental
for small furnished houses, by the owners and agents of whom I have been
speaking, were, in many cases, more than we had