Читать книгу A West Point Treasure; Or, Mark Mallory's Strange Find онлайн

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Mark stared at him in undisguised amazement. During all his acquaintance with that solemn scholar, he had never seen such an earthquake of a laugh as that. And evidently, too, the Parson was not used to it, for when he stopped he was so out of breath and red in the face that he could hardly move.

And that was the first, last, one and only time that Parson Stanard was ever known to laugh. It took a peculiar sort of a joke to move the Parson.

It took also quite an amount of sputtering and gasping to restore the gentleman’s throat and lungs to their ordinary normal condition. That spasm of hilarity which had plowed its way through him like a mighty ship through the waves had left little ripples and gurgles of laughter which bubbled forth occasionally for the next ten minutes at least. It passed, however, at last, to return no more, and Parson Stanard was the same, solemn and learned Parson as ever.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “er—that is—ahem—ladies—that was indeed a most extraordinary blunder for a student of geology to make.”