Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Purple Parasol
    The Purple Parasol
    The Purple Parasol
    Ebook70 pages49 minutes

    The Purple Parasol

    By George Barr McCutcheon

    2.5/5

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateDec 1, 2003
    The Purple Parasol
    Author

    George Barr McCutcheon

    George Barr McCutcheon (1866–1928) was an American novelist and playwright. McCutcheon first achieved success with a series of romantic novels set in the fictional country of Graustark and later went on to write the novel Brewster’s Millions, which was adapted into a play and several films. Born and educated in Indiana, McCutcheon is considered to be part of the golden age of Indiana literature. 

    Read more from George Barr Mc Cutcheon

    Related to The Purple Parasol

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Dresser Undressed

      Nov 25, 2021

      The Dresser Undressed
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Escape Of Koravitch

      Sep 30, 2019

      The Escape Of Koravitch
      16 min read

    • Article

      My Hollywood women

      Jan 12, 2022

      Until now I have never spoken of my dalliance with Audrey Hepburn. At the time I was married to my present wife and, in disclosing the following account of that far-off episode to the prurient perusers of this popular periodical, I have sought her re

      6 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Feb 19, 2021

      At a local newspaper in South East London in 1957, journalist Jean Swinney receives a curious letter written to the editor. Gretchen Tilbury – abeautiful, well-to-do woman – claims her 10-year-old daughter is the product of a virgin birth. Gretchen h

      5 min read

    • Article

      I'll Be Seeing You

      Mar 1, 2023

      I'll Be Seeing You
      25 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      Stranger in a Strange Land: Dave Eggers’s ‘The Parade’

      Feb 14, 2019

      Eggers is a master of point of view; you adhere to his protagonist, even if you have little or nothing in common with him, and even when you’re not entirely on his side. The post Stranger in a Strange Land: Dave Eggers’s ‘The Parade’ appeared first o

      5 min read

    • Article

      The William Trevor Reader: “The Bedroom Eyes of Mrs. Vansittart”

      Nov 3, 2022

      This story shows an author at the height of his powers, trying something he hasn't done before. The post The William Trevor Reader: “The Bedroom Eyes of Mrs. Vansittart” appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Jun 4, 2018

      I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. —Fred Allen I have always wondered, in reading travels, at the childish joy travellers felt at meeting people they knew, and their sense of loneliness when they did not, in

      4 min read

    • Article

      Shelf Life

      Nov 3, 2022

      Shelf Life
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Il’ja Rákoš

      Dec 20, 2022

      Il'ja Rákoš reflects on 2022 through the books he read. The post A Year in Reading: Il’ja Rákoš appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Hello, Grim Reaper

      Dec 15, 2021

      She was a babe. A fully paid-up, card-carrying babe. There was absolutely no doubt about it, and she was heading straight for me. She was almost sprinting towards me across the recently reimagined lobby of Claridge’s. She looked up, her scarlet-anoin

      3 min read

    • Article

      Hook, Line And Sinker

      Oct 18, 2018

      Hook, Line And Sinker
      4 min read

    • Article

      One of Us

      Sep 1, 2020

      One of Us
      8 min read

    • Article

      Retreading The City

      Nov 2, 2023

      It’s hard to pinpoint when and how inspiration strikes for a novel, but I know exactly when it did for The Detective. The Waiter and The Cook were the first two books in my Kamil Rahman thriller series about a disgraced policeman from Kolkata who co

      6 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Oct 18, 2023

      Readers’ Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Unkindest Cut

      Sep 3, 2019

      A 17-EPISODE TELEVISION SERIES DEDICATED SPECIFICALLY TO ADAPTATIONS of American-authored short fiction occasioned the happy confluence of two uniquely cherishable homegrown artistic talents: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Joan Micklin Silver. Following thr

      5 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Dec 1, 2021

      The light from the full moon lent a silky, glacial sheen to the towering front of the cloud, which stretched off to the horizon in both directions. I stood transfixed as it made its way down the street toward me at a little over the town’s speed limi

      3 min read

    Reviews for The Purple Parasol

    2.5/5

    3 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      "The Purple Parasol" is a shirt story about an unwilling spy who falls for the woman he's unwillingly spying on. George Barr McCutcheon was a talented writer and he doesn't fail to amuse here, using a imple yet well-constructed plot with a good twist near the end.

    Book preview

    The Purple Parasol - George Barr McCutcheon

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Purple Parasol, by George Barr McCutcheon

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Purple Parasol

    Author: George Barr McCutcheon

    Posting Date: April 12, 2013 [EBook #6575] Release Date: September, 2004 First Posted: December 29, 2002

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURPLE PARASOL ***

    Produced by Avinash Kothare, Charles Aldarondo and the On-line Distributed Proofreading Team.

    THE PURPLE PARASOL

    GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON

    THE PURPLE PARASOL

    Young Rossiter did not like the task. The more he thought of it as he whirled northward on the Empire State Express the more distasteful it seemed to grow.

    Hang it all, he thought, throwing down his magazine in disgust, it's like police work. And heaven knows I haven't wanted to be a cop since we lived in Newark twenty years ago. Why the dickens did old Wharton marry her? He's an old ass, and he's getting just what he might have expected. She's twenty-five and beautiful; he's seventy and a sight. I've a notion to chuck the whole affair and go back to the simple but virtuous Tenderloin. It's not my sort, that's all, and I was an idiot for mixing in it. The firm served me a shabby trick when it sent me out to work up this case for Wharton. It's a regular Peeping Tom Job, and I don't like it.

    It will require but few words to explain Sam Rossiter's presence in the north-bound Empire Express, but it would take volumes to express his feelings on the subject in general. Back in New York there lived Godfrey Wharton, millionaire and septuagenarian. For two years he had been husband to one of the prettiest, gayest young women in the city, and in the latter days of this responsibility he was not a happy man. His wife had fallen desperately, even conspicuously, in love with Everett Havens, the new leading man at one of the fashionable playhouses. The affair had been going on for weeks, and it had at last become the talk of the town. By the town is meant that vague, expansive thing known as the Four Hundred. Sam Rossiter, two years out of Yale, was an attachment to, but not a component part of, the Four Hundred. The Whartons were of the inner circle.

    Young Rossiter was ambitious. He was, besides, keen, aggressive, and determined to make well for himself. Entering the great law offices of Grover & Dickhut immediately after leaving college, he devoted himself assiduously to the career in prospect. He began by making its foundation as substantial as brains and energy would permit. So earnest, so successful was he that Grover & Dickhut regarded him as the most promising young man in New York. They predicted a great future for him, no small part of which was the ultimate alteration of an office shingle, the name of Rossiter going up in gilt, after that of Dickhut. And, above all, Rossiter was a handsome, likable chap. Tall, fair, sunny-hearted, well groomed, he was a fellow that both sexes liked without much effort.

    The Wharton trouble was bound to prove startling any way one looked at it. The prominence of the family, the baldness of its skeleton, and the gleeful eagerness with which it danced into full view left but little for meddlers to covet. A crash was inevitable; it was the clash that Grover & Dickhut were trying to avert. Old Wharton, worn to a slimmer frazzle than he had ever been before his luckless marriage, was determined to divorce his insolent younger half. It was to be done with as little noise as possible, more for his own sake than for hers. Wharton was proud in, not of, his weakness.

    It became necessary to shadow the fair débutante into matrimony. After weeks of indecision Mr. Wharton finally arose and swore in accents terrible that she was going too far

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1