{"product_id":"2940012074928","title":"OUR MR. WRENN THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF A GENTLE MAN","description":"CHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMR. WRENN IS LONELY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ticket-taker of the Nickelorion Moving-Picture Show is a\u003cbr\u003epublic personage, who stands out on Fourteenth Street, New York,\u003cbr\u003ewearing a gorgeous light-blue coat of numerous brass buttons.\u003cbr\u003eHe nods to all the patrons, and his nod is the most cordial\u003cbr\u003ein town.  Mr. Wrenn used to trot down to Fourteenth Street,\u003cbr\u003epassing ever so many other shows, just to get that cordial nod,\u003cbr\u003ebecause he had a lonely furnished room for evenings, and for\u003cbr\u003edaytime a tedious job that always made his head stuffy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe stands out in the correspondence of the Souvenir and Art\u003cbr\u003eNovelty Company as \"Our Mr. Wrenn,\" who would be writing you\u003cbr\u003edirectly and explaining everything most satisfactorily.\u003cbr\u003eAt thirty-four Mr. Wrenn was the sales-entry clerk of the\u003cbr\u003eSouvenir Company.  He was always bending over bills and columns\u003cbr\u003eof figures at a desk behind the stock-room.  He was a meek little\u003cbr\u003ebachlor--a person of inconspicuous blue ready-made suits, and a\u003cbr\u003esmall unsuccessful mustache.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo-day--historians have established the date as April 9,\u003cbr\u003e1910--there had been some confusing mixed orders from the\u003cbr\u003eWisconsin retailers, and Mr. Wrenn had been \"called down\"\u003cbr\u003eby the office manager, Mr. Mortimer R. Guilfogle.  He needed\u003cbr\u003ethe friendly nod of the Nickelorion ticket-taker.  He found\u003cbr\u003eFourteenth Street, after office hours, swept by a dusty\u003cbr\u003ewind that whisked the skirts of countless plump Jewish girls,\u003cbr\u003ewhose V-necked blouses showed soft throats of a warm brown.\u003cbr\u003eUnder the elevated station he secretly made believe that he was\u003cbr\u003ein Paris, for here beautiful Italian boys swayed with trays of\u003cbr\u003eviolets; a tramp displayed crimson mechanical rabbits, which\u003cbr\u003esqueaked, on silvery leading-strings; and a newsstand was heaped\u003cbr\u003ewith the orange and green and gold of magazine covers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Gee!\" inarticulated Mr. Wrenn.  \"Lots of colors.  Hope I see\u003cbr\u003eforeign stuff like that in the moving pictures.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe came primly up to the Nickelorion, feeling in his vest\u003cbr\u003epockets for a nickel and peering around the booth at the\u003cbr\u003efriendly ticket-taker.  But the latter was thinking about buying\u003cbr\u003eJohnny's pants.  Should he get them at the Fourteenth Street\u003cbr\u003eStore, or Siegel-Cooper's, or over at Aronson's, near home?\u003cbr\u003eSo ruminating, he twiddled his wheel mechanically, and Mr. Wrenn's\u003cbr\u003epasteboard slip was indifferently received in the plate-glass\u003cbr\u003egullet of the grinder without the taker's even seeing the\u003cbr\u003eclerk's bow and smile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. Wrenn trembled into the door of the Nickelorion.  He wanted\u003cbr\u003eto turn back and rebuke this fellow, but was restrained by\u003cbr\u003eshyness.  He _had_ liked the man's \"Fine evenin', sir \"--rain\u003cbr\u003eor shine--but he wouldn't stand for being cut.  Wasn't he making\u003cbr\u003enineteen dollars a week, as against the ticket-taker's ten\u003cbr\u003eor twelve?  He shook his head with the defiance of a cornered\u003cbr\u003emouse, fussed with his mustache, and regarded the moving\u003cbr\u003epictures gloomily.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey helped him.  After a Selig domestic drama came a stirring\u003cbr\u003eVitagraph Western scene, \"The Goat of the Rancho,\" which\u003cbr\u003edepicted with much humor and tumult the revolt of a ranch cook,\u003cbr\u003ea Chinaman.  Mr. Wrenn was really seeing, not cow-punchers and\u003cbr\u003esage-brush, but himself, defying the office manager's surliness\u003cbr\u003eand revolting against the ticket-man's rudeness.  Now he was\u003cbr\u003eready for the nearly overpowering delight of travel-pictures.\u003cbr\u003eHe bounced slightly as a Gaumont film presented Java.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was a connoisseur of travel-pictures, for all his life he had\u003cbr\u003ebeen planning a great journey.  Though he had done Staten Island\u003cbr\u003eand patronized an excursion to Bound Brook, neither of these was\u003cbr\u003ehis grand tour.  It was yet to be taken.  In Mr. Wrenn,\u003cbr\u003eapparently fastened to New York like a domestic-minded barnacle,\u003cbr\u003elay the possibilities of heroic roaming.  He knew it.  He, too,\u003cbr\u003elike the man who had taken the Gaumont pictures, would saunter\u003cbr\u003eamong dusky Javan natives in \"markets with tiles on the roofs\u003cbr\u003eand temples and--and--uh, well--places!\"  The scent of Oriental\u003cbr\u003espices was in his broadened nostrils as he scampered out of the\u003cbr\u003eNickelorion, without a look at the ticket-taker, and headed for\u003cbr\u003e\"home\"--for his third-floor-front on West Sixteenth Street.\u003cbr\u003eHe wanted to prowl through his collection of steamship brochures\u003cbr\u003efor a description of Java.  But, of course, when one's landlady\u003cbr\u003ehas both the sciatica and a case of Patient Suffering one stops\u003cbr\u003ein the basement dining-room to inquire how she is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Zapp was a fat landlady.  When she sat down there was\u003cbr\u003ea straight line from her chin to her knees.  She was usually\u003cbr\u003esitting down.  When she moved she groaned, and her apparel creaked.\u003cbr\u003eShe groaned and creaked from bed to breakfast, and ate five\u003cbr\u003egriddle-cakes, two helpin's of scrapple, an egg, some r","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081045393648,"sku":"2940012074928","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012074928_p0.jpg?v=1763552425","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012074928","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}