A \ B \ C \ D \ E \ F \ G \ H \ I \ J \ K \ L \ M \ N \ O \ P \ R \ S \ T \ U \ V \ W \Z

The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him by Paul Leicester Ford

P >> Paul Leicester Ford >> The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him




"Hear the little Frenchwoman talk," said Watts.

"I'm not French."

"Yes you are, Dot."

"I'm all American. I haven't a feeling that isn't all American. Doesn't
that make me an American, Peter, no matter where I was born?"

"I think you are an American under the law."

"Am I really?" said Leonore, incredulously.

"Yes. You were born of American parents, and you will be living in this
country when you become of age. That constitutes nationality."

"Oh, how lovely! I knew I was an American, really, but papa was always
teasing me and saying I was a foreigner. I hate foreigners."

"Confound you, chum, you've spoiled one of my best jokes! It's been such
fun to see Dot bristle when I teased her. She's the hottest little
patriot that ever lived."

"I think Miss D'Alloi's nationality is akin to that of a case of which I
once heard," said Peter, smiling. "A man was bragging about the number
of famous men who were born in his native town. He mentioned a
well-known personage, among others, and one of his auditors said: 'I
didn't know he was born there,' 'Oh, yes, he was,' replied the man. 'He
was born there, but during the temporary absence of his parents!'"

"Peter, how much does a written opinion cost?" asked Leonore, eagerly.

"It has a range about equal to the woman's statement that a certain
object was as long as a piece of string."

"But your opinions?"

"I have given an opinion for nothing. The other day I gave one to a
syndicate, and charged eight thousand dollars."

"Oh, dear!" said Leonore. "I wonder if I can afford to get your opinion
on my being an American? I should like to frame it and hang it in my
room. Would it be expensive?"

"It is usual with lawyers," said Peter gravely, "to find out how much a
client has, and then make the bill for a little less. How much do you
have?"

"I really haven't any now. I shall have two hundred dollars on the
first. But then I owe some bills."

"You forget your grandmamma's money, Dot."

"Oh! Of course. I shall be rich, Peter, I come into the income of my
property on Tuesday. I forget how much it is, but I'm sure I can afford
to have an opinion."

"Why, Dot, we must get those papers out, and you must find some one to
put the trust in legal shape, and take care of it for you," said Watts.

"I suppose," said Leonore to Peter, "if you have one lawyer to do all
your work, that he does each thing cheaper, doesn't he?"

"Yes. Because he divides what his client has, on several jobs, instead
of on one," Peter told her.

"Then I think I'll have you do it all. We'll come down and see you about
it. But write out that opinion at once, so that I can prove that I'm an
American."

"Very well. But there's a safer way, even, of making sure that you're an
American."

"What is that?" said Leonore, eagerly.

"Marry one," said Peter.

"Oh, yes," said Leonore, "I've always intended to do that, but not for a
great many years."




CHAPTER XLI.

CALLS.


Peter dressed himself the next evening with particular care, even for
him. As Peter dressed, he was rather down on life. He had been kept from
his ride that afternoon by taking evidence in a referee case. "I really
needed the exercise badly," he said. He had tried to work his
dissatisfaction off on his clubs and dumb-bells, but whatever they had
done for his blood and tissue, they had not eased his frame of mind.
Dinner made him a little pleasanter, for few men can remain cross over a
proper meal. Still, he did not look happy, when, on rising from his
coffee, he glanced at his watch and found that it was but ten minutes
past eight.

He vacillated for a moment, and then getting into his outside trappings,
he went out and turned eastward, down the first side street. He walked
four blocks, and then threw open the swing door of a brilliantly lighted
place, stepping at once into a blaze of light and warmth which was most
attractive after the keen March wind blowing outside.

He nodded to the three barkeepers. "Is Dennis inside?" he asked.

"Yes, Misther Stirling. The regulars are all there."

Peter passed through the room, and went into another without knocking.
In it were some twenty men, sitting for the most part in attitudes
denoting ease. Two, at a small table in the corner, were playing
dominoes. Three others, in another corner, were amusing themselves with
"High, Low, Jack." Two were reading papers. The rest were collected
round the centre table, most of them smoking. Some beer mugs and
tumblers were standing about, but not more than a third of the twenty
were drinking anything. The moment Peter entered, one of the men jumped
to his feet.

"B'ys," he cried, "here's Misther Stirling. Begobs, sir, it's fine to
see yez. It's very scarce yez been lately." He had shaken hands, and
then put a chair in place for Peter.

The cards, papers, and dominoes had been abandoned the moment Dennis
announced Peter's advent, and when Peter had finished shaking the hands
held out to him, and had seated himself, the men were all gathered round
the big table.

Peter laid his hat on the table, threw back his Newcastle and lit a
cigar. "I've been very short of time, Dennis. But I had my choice this
evening before going uptown, of smoking a cigar in my own quarters, or
here. So I came over to talk with you all about Denton."

"An' what's he been doin'?" inquired Dennis.

"I saw him to-day about the Hummel franchise that comes up in the Board
next Tuesday. He won't vote for it, he says. I told him I thought it was
in the interest of the city to multiply means of transit, and asked him
why he refused. He replied that he thought the Hummel gang had been
offering money, and that he would vote against bribers."

"He didn't have the face to say that?" shouted one of the listeners.

"Yes."

"Oi never!" said Dennis. "An' he workin' night an' day to get the Board
to vote the rival road."

"I don't think there's much doubt that money is being spent by both
sides," said Peter. "I fear no bill could ever pass without it. But the
Hummel crowd are really responsible people, who offer the city a good
percentage. The other men are merely trying to get the franchise, to
sell it out at a profit to Hummel. I don't like the methods of either,
but there's a road needed, and there'll be a road voted, so it's simply
a choice between the two. I shouldn't mind if Denton voted against both
schemes, but to say he'll vote against Hummel for that reason, and yet
vote for the other franchise shows that he's not square. I didn't say so
to him, because I wanted to talk it over with the ward a little first to
see if they stood with me."

"That we do, sir," said Dennis, with a sureness which was cool, if
nothing more. Fortunately for the boldness of the speaker, no one
dissented, and two or three couples nodded heads or pipes at each other.

Peter looked at his watch. "Then I can put the screws on him safely,
you think?"

"Yes," cried several.

Peter rose. "Dennis, will you see Blunkers and Driscoll this evening, or
some time to-morrow, and ask if they think so too? And if they don't,
tell them to drop in on me, when they have leisure."

"Begobs, sir, Oi'll see them inside av ten minutes. An' if they don't
agree widus, shure, Oi'll make them."

"Thank you. Good-night."

"Good-night, Mr. Stirling," came a chorus, and Peter passed into the
street by the much maligned side-door.

Dennis turned to the group with his face shining with enthusiasm. "Did
yez see him, b'ys? There was style for yez. Isn't he somethin' for the
ward to be proud av?"

Peter turned to Broadway, and fell into a long rapid stride. In spite of
the cold he threw open his coat, and carried his outer covering on his
arm. Peter had no intention of going into an up-town drawing-room with
any suggestion of "sixt" ward tobacco. So he walked till he reached
Madison Square, when, after a glance at his watch, he jumped into a cab.

It was a quarter-past nine when the footman opened the door of the
Fifty-seventh Street house, in reply to Peter's ring. Yet he was told
that, "The ladies are still at dinner."

Peter turned and went down the stoop. He walked to the Avenue, and
stopped at a house not far off.

"Is Mrs. Pell at home?" he asked, and procured entrance for both his
pasteboard and himself.

"Welcome, little stranger," was his greeting. "And it is so nice that
you came this evening. Here is Van, on from Washington for two days."

"I was going to look you up, and see what 'we, the people' were talking
about, so that I could enlighten our legislators when I go back," said a
man of forty.

"I wrote Pope a long letter to-day, which I asked him to show you," said
Peter. "Things are in a bad shape, and getting worse."

"But, Peter," queried the woman, "if you are the leader, why do you let
them get so?"

"So as to remain the leader," said Peter, smiling quietly.

"Now that's what comes of ward politics," cried Mrs. Pell, "You are
beginning to make Irish bulls."

"No," replied Peter, "I am serious, and because people don't understand
what I mean, they don't understand American politics."

"But you say in effect that the way you retain your leadership, is by
not leading. That's absurd!"

"No. Contradiction though it may seem the way to lose authority, is to
exercise it too much. Christ enunciated the great truth of democratic
government, when he said, 'He that would be the greatest among you,
shall be the servant of all'"

"I hope you won't carry your theory so far as to let them nominate
Maguire?" said Mr. Pell, anxiously.

"Now, please don't begin on politics," said the woman. "Here is Van,
whom I haven't seen for nine weeks, and here is Peter whom I haven't
seen for time out of mind, and just as I think I have a red-letter
evening before me, you begin your everlasting politics."

"I merely stopped in to shake hands," said Peter. "I have a call to make
elsewhere, and can stay but twenty minutes. For that time we choose you
speaker, and you can make us do as it pleases you."

Twenty minutes later Peter passed into the D'Alloi drawing-room. He
shook Mrs. D'Alloi's hand steadily, which was more than she did with
his. Then he was made happy for a moment, with that of Leonore. Then he
was introduced to a Madame Mellerie, whom he placed at once as the
half-governess, half-companion, who had charge of Leonore's education; a
Mr. Maxwell, and a Marquis de somebody. They were both good-looking
young fellows; and greeted Peter in a friendly way. But Peter did not
like them.

He liked them less when Mrs. D'Alloi told him to sit in a given place,
and then put Madame Mellerie down by him. Peter had not called to see
Madame Mellerie. But he made a virtue of necessity, and he was too
instinctively courteous not to treat the Frenchwoman with the same touch
of deference his manner towards women always had. After they had been
chatting for a little on French literature, it occurred to Peter that
her opinion of him might have some influence with Leonore, so he decided
that he would try and please her. But this thought turned his mind to
Leonore, and speaking of her to her governess, he at once became so
interested in the facts she began to pour out to him, that he forgot
entirely about his diplomatic scheme.

This arrangement continued half an hour, when a dislocation of the
_statu quo_ was made by the departure of Mr. Maxwell. When the exit was
completed, Mrs. D'Alloi turned to place her puppets properly again. But
she found a decided bar to her intentions. Peter had formed his own
conclusions as to why he had been set to entertain Madame Mellerie, not
merely from the fact itself, but from the manner in which it had been
done, and most of all, from the way Mrs. D'Alloi had managed to stand
between Leonore and himself, as if protecting the former, till she had
been able to force her arrangements. So with the first stir Peter had
risen, and when the little bustle had ceased he was already standing by
Leonore, talking to her. Mrs. D'Alloi did not look happy, but for the
moment she was helpless.

Peter had had to skirt the group to get to Leonore, and so had stood
behind her during the farewells. She apparently had not noticed his
advent, but the moment she had done the daughter-of-the-house duty, she
turned to him, and said: "I wondered if you would go away without seeing
me. I was so afraid you were one of the men who just say, 'How d'ye do'
and 'Good-bye,' and think they've paid a call."

"I called to see you to-night, and I should not have gone till I had
seen you. I'm rather a persistent man in some things."

"Yes," said Leonore, bobbing her head in a very knowing manner, "Miss De
Voe told me."

"Mr. Stirling," said Mrs. D'Alloi, "can't you tell us the meaning of the
Latin motto on this seal?" Mrs. D'Alloi held a letter towards him, but
did not stir from her position across the room.

Peter understood the device. He was to be drawn off, and made to sit by
Mrs. D'Alloi, not because she wanted to see him, but because she did not
want him to talk to Leonore. Peter had no intention of being dragooned.
So he said: "Madame Mellerie has been telling me what a good Latin
scholar Miss D'Alloi is. I certainly shan't display my ignorance, till
she has looked at it." Then he carried the envelope over to Leonore,
and in handing it to her, moved a chair for her, not neglecting one for
himself. Mrs. D'Alloi looked discouraged, the more when Peter and
Leonore put their heads close together, to examine the envelope.

"'_In bonam partem_,'" read Leonore. "That's easy, mamma. It's--why, she
isn't listening!"

"You can tell her later. I have something to talk to you about."

"What is that?"

"Your dinner in my quarters. Whom would you like to have there?"

"Will you really give me a dinner?"

"Yes."

"And let me have just whom I want?"

"Yes."

"Oh, lovely! Let me see. Mamma and papa, of course."

"That's four. Now you can have two more."

"Peter. Would you mind--I mean----" Leonore hesitated a moment and then
said in an apologetic tone--"Would you like to invite madame? I've been
telling her about your rooms--and you--and I think it would please her
so."

"That makes five," said Peter.

"Oh, goody!" said Leonore, "I mean," she said, correcting herself, "that
that is very kind of you."

"And now the sixth?"

"That must be a man of course," said Leonore, wrinkling up her forehead
in the intensity of puzzlement. "And I know so few men." She looked out
into space, and Peter had a moment's fear lest she should see the
marquis, and name him. "There's one friend of yours I'm very anxious to
meet. I wonder if you would be willing to ask him?"

"Who is that?"

"Mr. Moriarty."

"No, I can't ask him, I don't want to cheapen him by making a show of
him."

"Oh! I haven't that feeling about him. I----"

"I think you would understand him and see the fine qualities. But do you
think others would?" Peter mentioned no names, but Leonore understood.

"No," she said. "You are quite right."

"You shall meet him some day," said Peter, "if you wish, but when we can
have only people who won't embarrass or laugh at him."

"Really, I don't know whom to select."

"Perhaps you would like to meet Le Grand?"

"Very much. He is just the man."

"Then we'll consider that settled. Are you free for the ninth?"

"Yes. I'm not going out this spring, and mamma and papa haven't really
begun yet, and it's so late in the season that I'm sure we are free."

"Then I will ice the canvas-backs and champagne and dust off the
Burgundy for that day, if your mamma accedes."

"Peter, I wanted to ask you the other day about that. I thought you
didn't drink wine."

"I don't. But I give my friends a glass, when they are good enough to
come to me. I live my own life, to please myself, but for that very
reason, I want others to live their lives to please themselves. Trying
to live other people's lives for them, is a pretty dog-in-the-manger
business."

Just then Mrs. D'Alloi joined them. "Were you able to translate it?" she
asked, sitting down by them.

"Yes, indeed," said Leonore. "It means 'Towards the right side,' or as a
motto it might be translated, 'For the right side.'"

Mrs. D'Alloi had clearly, to use a western expression, come determined
to "settle down and grow up with the country." So Peter broached the
subject of the dinner, and when she hesitated, Leonore called Watts into
the group. He threw the casting ballot in favor of the dinner, and so it
was agreed upon. Peter was asked to come to Leonore's birthday festival,
"If you don't mind such short notice," and he didn't mind, apparently.
Then the conversation wandered at will till Peter rose. In doing so, he
turned to Leonore, and said:

"I looked the question of nationality up to-day, and found I was right.
I've written out a legal opinion in my best hand, and will deliver it to
you, on receiving my fee."

"How much is that?" said Leonore, eagerly.

"That you come and get it."




CHAPTER XLII.

DOWN-TOWN NEW YORK.


Peter had not been working long the next morning when he was told that
"The Honorable Terence Denton wishes to see you," "Very well," he said,
and that worthy was ushered in.

"Good-morning, Denton. I'm glad to see you. I was going down to the Hall
to-day to say something, but you've saved me the trouble."

"I know you was. So I thought I'd get ahead of you," said Denton, with a
surly tone and manner.

"Sit down," said Peter. Peter had learned that, with a certain class of
individuals, a distance and a seat have a very dampening effect on
anger. It is curious, man's instinctive desire to stand up to and be
near the object for which anger is felt.

"You've been talking against me in the ward, and makin' them down on
me."

"No, I didn't talk against you. I've spoken with some of the people
about the way you think of voting on the franchises."

"Yes. I wasn't round, but a friend heard Dennis and Blunkers a-going
over it last night. And it's you did it."

"Yes. But you know me well enough to be sure, after my talk with you
yesterday, that I wouldn't stop there."

"So you try to set the pack on me."

"No. I try to see how the ward wants its alderman to vote on the
franchises."

"Look a-here. What are you so set on the Hummel crowd for?"

"I'm not."

"Is it because Hummel's a big contractor and gives you lots of law
business?"

"No," said Peter, smiling. "And you don't think it is, either."

"Has they offered you some stock cheap?"

"Come, come, Denton. You know the _tu quoque_ do here."

Denton shifted in his seat uneasily, not knowing what reply to make.
Those two little Latin words had such unlimited powers of concealment in
them. He did not know whether _tu quoque_ meant something about votes,
an insulting charge, or merely a reply, and feared to make himself
ridiculous by his response to them. He was not the first man who has
been hampered and floored by his own ignorance. He concluded he must
make an entire change of subject to be safe. So he said, "I ain't goin'
to be no boss's puppy dog."

"No," said Peter, finding it difficult not to smile, "you are not that
kind of a man."

"I takes my orders from no one."

"Denton, no one wants you to vote by order. We elected you alderman to
do what was best for the ward and city, as it seems to you. You are
responsible for your votes to us, and no other man can be. I don't care
who orders you or advises you; in the end, you must vote yourself, and
you yourself will be held to account by us."

"Yes. But if I don't vote as you wants, you'll sour the boys on me."

"I shall tell them what I think. You can do the same. It's a fair game
between us."

"No, it ain't. You're rich and you can talk more."

"You know my money has nothing to do with it. You know I don't try to
deceive the men in talking to them. If they trust what I tell them, it's
because it's reasonable, and because I haven't tricked them before."

"Well, are you goin' to drive me out?"

"I hope not. I think you've made a good alderman, Denton, and you'll
find I've said so."

"But now?"

"If you vote for that franchise, I shall certainly tell the ward that I
think you've done wrong. Then the ward will do as they please."

"As you please, you mean."

"No. You've been long enough in politics to know that unless I can make
the ward think as I do, I couldn't do anything. What would you care for
my opinion, if you didn't know that the votes are back of it?"

Just then the door swung open, and Dennis came in. "Tim said yez was
alone wid Denton, sir, so Oi came right in. It's a good-mornin', sir.
How are yez, Terence?"

"You are just the man I want, Dennis. Tell Denton how the ward feels
about the franchises."

"Shure. It's one man they is. An' if Denton will step down to my place
this night, he'll find out how they think."

"They never would have felt so, if Mister Stirling hadn't talked to
them. Not one in twenty knew the question was up."

"That's because they are most of them too hard working to keep track of
all the things. Come, Denton; I don't attempt to say how you shall vote.
I only tell you how it seems to me. Go round the ward, and talk with
others. Then you can tell whether I can give you trouble in the future
or not. I don't want to fight you. We've been good friends in the past,
and we can do more by pulling in double harness than by kicking, I don't
know a man I would rather see at the Hall." Peter held out his hand, and
Denton took it.

"All right, Mister Stirling. I'll do my best to stay friends," he said,
and went out.

Peter turned and smiled at Dennis. "They can't find out that it's not I,
but the ward. So every time there's trouble they lay it against me, and
it's hard to keep them friendly. And I hate quarrels and surliness."

"It's yezself can do it, though. Shure, Denton was in a great state av
mind this mornin', they was tellin' me, but he's all right now, an' will
vote right, or my name isn't Dennis Moriarty."

"Yes. He doesn't know it yet, but he'll vote square on Tuesday."

Just then Tim brought in the cards of Watts and Leonore, and strangely
enough, Peter said they were to be shown in at once. In they came, and
after the greetings, Peter said:

"Miss D'Alloi, this is my dear friend, Dennis Moriarty. Dennis, Miss
D'Alloi has wanted to know you because she's heard of your being such a
friend to me."

"Shure," said Dennis, taking the little hand so eagerly offered him,
"Oim thinkin' we're both lucky to be in the thoughts at all, at all, av
such a sweet young lady."

"Oh, Mr. Moriarty, you've kissed the blarney stone."

"Begobs," responded Dennis, "it needs no blarney stone to say that.
It's afther sayin' itself."

"Peter, have you that opinion?"

"Yes." Peter handed her out a beautifully written sheet of script, all
in due form, and given an appearance of vast learning, by red ink
marginal references to such solid works as "Wheaton," "Story," and
"Cranch's" and "Wallace's" reports. Peter had taken it practically from
a "Digest," but many apparently learned opinions come from the same
source. And the whole was given value by the last two lines, which read,
"Respectfully submitted, Peter Stirling." Peter's name had value at the
bottom of a legal opinion, or a check, if nowhere else.

"Look, Mr. Moriarty," cried Leonore, too full of happiness over this
decision of her nationality not to wish for some one with whom to share
it, "I've always thought I was French--though I didn't feel so a
bit--and now Mr. Stirling has made me an American, and I'm so happy. I
hate foreigners."

Watts laughed. "Why, Dot. You mustn't say that to Mr. Moriarty. He's a
foreigner himself."

"Oh, I forgot. I didn't think that----" Poor Leonore stopped there,
horrified at what she had said.

"No," said Peter, "Dennis is not a foreigner. He's one of the most
ardent Americans I know. As far as my experience goes, to make one of
Dennis's bulls, the hottest American we have to-day, is the
Irish-American."

"Oh, come," said Watts. "You know every Irishman pins his loyalty to the
'owld counthry.'"

"Shure," said Dennis, "an' if they do, what then? Sometimes a man finds
a full-grown woman, fine, an' sweet, an' strong, an' helpful to him, an'
he comes to love her big like. But does that make him forget his old
weak mother, who's had a hard life av it, yet has done her best by him?
Begobs! If he forgot her, he wouldn't be the man to make a good husband.
Oi don't say Oi'm a good American, for its small Oi feel besides Misther
Stirling. But Oi love her, an' if she ever wants the arm, or the blood,
or the life, av Dennis Moriarty, she's only got to say so."

"Well," said Watts, "this is very interesting, both as a point of view
and as oratory; but it isn't business. Peter, we came down this morning
to take whatever legal steps are necessary to put Dot in possession of
her grandmother's money, of which I have been trustee. Here is a lot of
papers about it. I suppose everything is there relating to it."

"Papa seemed to think it would be very wise to ask you to take care of
it, and pay me the income, I can't have the principal till I'm
twenty-five."

"You must tie it up some way, Peter, or Dot will make ducks and drakes
of it. She has about as much idea of the value of money as she has of
the value of foreigners. When we had our villa at Florence, she
supported the entire pauper population of the city."

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

James Russell Lowell - "The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays"

Samuel Strickland - "Twenty Seven Years in Canada West"

Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841"

Erwin W. Roessler and Alfred Remy - "A First Spanish Reader"

Audio slideshow: Robert Shaw discusses his production of Sylvia Plath's only play
Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Stephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
Three Women was first heard as a radio drama and then published as a poem. Robert Shaw explains his desire to stage the piece as it was intended

Video: Costa prize winners

A Stephen King fan has published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining, where his descent into madness is revealed when his wife discovers that his work consists of just one phrase, endlessly repeated.

Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in terrifying form in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, is a frustrated writer who goes with his wife and son to spend the winter in the isolated Overlook Hotel in an attempt to get the novel he has always wanted to write started. But the hotel's grisly past and unquiet ghosts have their way with him, and his wife Wendy eventually finds that the manuscript he has been working on actually only contains the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", typed over and over again.

Now New York artist Phil Buehler, who describes himself as "a big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King", has self-published a book credited to Torrance, repeating the phrase throughout but formatting each page differently, using the words to create different shapes from zigzags to spirals.

"The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."

He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.

He's included a spoof review from the blog OverThinkingIt.com on the book's back jacket, which compares it to "the best of Beckett" in its "lack of forward momentum", and considers the struggles of the author, "heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence". "It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power," the review says. "Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint."

So far, Buehler says that around 1,000 people have viewed the book, for sale on Blurb.com for $8.95 in paperback, or $22.95 in hardback, and he's sold "a few" copies, with sales now starting to pick up steam. "A few people have asked me to sign it - they're looking it as a piece of art rather than a funny thing to give to a Kubrick fan," he said. "If you're not a Kubrick or King fan, you might not even get it."

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds