Читать книгу The Seven Darlings - Gouverneur Morris - Страница 7

And, as Gay said to Lee: "If that doesn't fetch 'em—you and I know something that maybe will."

The full-page ad began and ended with a portrait of Uncas, the chipmunk, front view, sitting up, his cheeks puffed to the bursting point. The centre of the page was occupied by a rather large view of The Camp and many of the charming little buildings which composed it, taken from the lake. Throughout the text were scattered reproductions—strings of trout, a black bear, nine deer hanging in a row, and other seductions to an out-of-door life. For lovers of good food there was a tiny portrait of the chef and adjoining it a photograph of the largest bunch of white muscats that had ever matured in Phyllis's vinery.

A few days before the final proofs began to come in from the advertising managers, there arrived, addressed to Gay, a package from a firm in New York which makes a specialty of developing and printing photographs for amateurs. Gay concealed the package, but Lee had noted its existence, and sighed with relief. A little later she found occasion to take Gay aside.

"Was the old film all right? Did they print well?"

Gay nodded. "It always was a wonderful picture," she said.

"Us for the tall timber," she said—"when they come out."

The final proofs being corrected and enveloped, Gay and Lee, innocent and bored of face, announced that, as there was nothing to do, they thought they would row the mail down to the village. It was a seven-mile row, but that was nothing out of the ordinary for them and it was arranged that the Streak should be sent after them in case they showed signs of being late for lunch.

Gay rowed with leisurely strokes, while Lee, seated in the stern, busied herself with a pair of scissors and a pot of paste. She was giving the finally corrected proofs that still more final correcting which she and Gay had agreed to be necessary.

They had decided that the centrepiece of the advertisement—a mere general view of The Camp—though very charming in its way, "meant nothing," and they had made up their unhallowed minds to substitute in its place one of those "fortunate snap-shots," the film of which Gay had—happened to preserve.

In this photograph the six Darling sisters were seated in a row, on the edge of The Camp float. Their feet and ankles were immersed. They wore black bathing-dresses, exactly alike, and the bathing-dresses were of rather thin material—and very, very wet.

The six exquisite heads perched on the six exquisite figures proved a picture which, as Lee and Gay admitted, might cause even a worthy young man to leave home and mother.

It was not until they were half-way home that Lee suddenly cried aloud and hid her face in her hands.

"For Heaven's sake," exclaimed Gay, "trim boat, and what's the matter anyway?"

"Matter?" exclaimed Lee; "that picture of us sits right on top of the line Prices Rather High. And it's too late to do anything about it!"

Gay turned white and then red, and then she burst out laughing. "'Tis awful," she said, "but it will certainly fetch 'em."