John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities.
Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.
Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.
Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot.
The paper being written and folded I waited two days until the bano was empty as before, and immediately repaired to the usual walk on the terrace to see if there were any sign of the reed, which was not long in making its appearance.
For four days the bano was filled with people, for which reason the reed delayed its appearance for four days, but at the end of that time, when the bano was, as it generally was, empty, it appeared with the cloth so bulky that it promised a happy birth.
I renewed my promise to be her husband; and thus the next day that the bano chanced to be empty she at different times gave us by means of the reed and cloth two thousand gold crowns and a paper in which she said that the next Juma, that is to say Friday, she was going to her father's garden, but that before she went she would give us more money; and if it were not enough we were to let her know, as she would give us as much as we asked, for her father had so much he would not miss it, and besides she kept all the keys.
The crossroads is, in fact, that point at which
Reed's novel leaves its readers; at its close we watch LaBas driving his Locomobile Town Coupe across the bridge into Manhattan, back where the story begins and ends.
WEB WATCH: For brief biographies of the Donners,
Reeds, and other members of the group see http://members.aol.com/ DanMRosen/donner/members.htm.
Like most woodwind players, he buys
reeds by the box, shapes each with a knife, then tests them one by one.
The book's eight chapters divide roughly into two sections, general information about instruments (their acoustics, proper embouchure for playing them) and
reeds (tools and an overview of
reed construction), and specific discussions of
reeds for each instrument family.
(http://observer.com/author/rex-reed/) Rex
Reed is the lead reviewer for a well-respected publication but his review of "Identity Thief" is controversial for all the wrong reasons.