Don Lavington

“ Lavender as if collaring him at football, he knocked off his hat, propelled him into the car, banged the door, mounted, and started at full speed, with Blink leaping and barking in front of them.
Debouching from Piave Parade into Bottomley Lane he drove up it till the crowd was but a memory before he stopped to examine the condition his master. Mr. Lavender was hanging out of window, looking back, and shivering violently.
“Well, sir,” said Joe. “I don't think!”
“Joe,” said Mr. Lavender that crowd ought not to be at large. They were manifestly Huns. ”

“ Lavender sighed. “I do so wonder whether I shall, too,” he said.
Joe looked round at him, and a gleam of compassion twinkled in his greenish eyes. “Don't you worry, sir,” he said; “it's a question of constitootion. A week'd sew you up.”
“A week!” said Mr. Lavender with watering lips, “I trust I may not forget myself so long as that. Public men do not go 'on the bust,' Joe, as you put it.”
“Be careful, sir! I can't drive with one eye.”
“How can they, indeed?” went on Mr. Lavender; “they are like athletes, ever in training for their unending conflict with the national life.” ”

“ Lavender went along, not sorry to have the protection of that stalwart form, for his nerve was shaken, not so much by physical suffering as by the revelation he had received.
“If you'll take my tip, sir,” said the policeman, parting from him, “you won't try no private life again; you don't look strong.” ”

“ Lavender.
“Your chauffeur—I call him that. He's very like Sam Weller and Sancho Panza, don't you think, Don Pickwixote?
“Ah!” said Mr. Lavender, bewildered; “Joe, you mean. A good fellow. He has in him the sort of heroism which I admire more than any other.”
“Which is that?” asked the young lady.
“That imperturbable humour in the face of adverse circumstances for which our soldiers are renowned.”
“You are a great believer in heroics, Don Pickwixote,” said the young lady.
“What would life be without them?” returned Mr. Lavender. “The war could not go on for a minute.” ”

“ This lighted up such a new vista of public utility that his brain would certainly have caught fire again if one of the policemen who had conducted him across the Square had not touched him on the arm, and said:
“How are you now, sir?”
“I am pretty well, thank you, policeman,” replied Mr. Lavender, “and sorry that I occasioned so much disturbance.”
“Don't mention it, sir,” answered the policeman; “you came a nasty crump.”
“Tell me,” said Mr. Lavender, suddenly looking up into his face, “do you consider that a man is justified in living a private life? ”

“ It is her impertinent assurance which annoys me. That calm half-unconscious air of superiority would provoke a saint."
"If there were any saints in our set to be provoked," said Lavendale; "but I don't think there is anything saintly to be met with in a West End card-room."
"Look at her now, as she stands with her elbow leaning on yonder mantelpiece, not deigning even to pretend to listen to Mr. Dapperwit's compliments. I wonder, for my part, that he wastes his cleverness upon a creature of ice. Where did she get that cold impregnable air?" ”

“ Lavender lowered the paper.
“I cannot bear cynicism, Joe; there is no quality so unbecoming to a gentleman.”
“Me and 'im don't put in for that, sir.”
“Joe, Mr. Lavender would say you are, incorrigible....”
Our gentleman, in common with all worthy of the name, had a bank-book, which, in hopes that it would disclose an unsuspected balance, he would have “made up” every time he read an utterance exhorting people to invest and save their country.
One morning at the end of May, finding there was none, he called in his housekeeper and said:
“Mrs. Petty, we are spending too much ”

“ CHAPTER XI.
"Personally," continued Lavirotte, "I have no desire to shoot you. You are at perfect liberty to live. But as you were so sure a little while ago that you were a dead man, and I was one also, it doesn't make much difference who pulls the trigger. Yet I think, before we take our final leave of the world, it would be just as well we had a quiet little chat." "You don't mean to say," cried James O'Donnell, "that you would murder me in cold blood?" "How can I murder you in cold blood, or in heat, since you say you are already dead? ”

“ In his fastidious chastity, the opinion he had held of Fort was suddenly lowered. He, already a free-thinker, was now revealed as a free-liver. Poor little Nollie! Endangered again already! Every man a kind of wolf waiting to pounce on her!
He found Lavendie and Noel in the drawing-room, standing before the portrait which was nearing completion. He looked at it for a long minute, and turned away:
“Don't you think it's like me, Daddy?”
“It's like you; but it hurts me. I can't tell why.”
He saw the smile of a painter whose picture is being criticised come on Lavendie's face. ”

“ Lavender, “remind me of that episode. I sometimes think,” he went on as dreamily as his hunger would permit, “that being forced to deprive oneself awakens one's worst passions; that is, of course, speaking rather as a man than a public man. What do you think will happen, Joe, when we are no longer obliged to sacrifice ourselves?
“Do wot we've been doin all along—sacrifice someone else,” said Joe lightly.
“Be serious, Joe,” said Mr. Lavender.
“Well,” returned Joe, “I don't know what'll 'appen to you, sir, but I shall go on the bust permanent.” ”

“ Lavender's visage, and he added: “Don't take wot I say to 'eart, sir; try as you like you'll never be a public man.”
Those words, which seemed to Mr. Lavender to seal his doom, caused a faint pink flush to invade his cheeks.
“No,” continued Joe, pouring out the wine; “you 'aven't got the brass in times like these. I dare say you've noticed, sir, that the times is favourable for bringing out the spots on the body politic. 'Ere's 'ealth!”
“Joe,” said Mr. Lavender, raising the glass to his lips with solemnity, “I wish you a most happy and prosperous life. ”

“ Lavender could reply he felt Aurora's foot pressing his, and heard her say:
“Don Pickwixote's views are after your own heart, Dad; he's for the complete destruction of the Hun.”
“Indeed, yes,” cried Mr. Lavender with shining eyes. “Right and justice demand it. We seek to gain nothing!” ”

“ It was lucky that it was dark, for Honoria and Argemone both blushed crimson.
‘Your poor father’s mind has been quite unsettled by all their ribaldry. They have kept him so continually amused, that all my efforts to bring him to a sense of his awful state have been more unavailing than ever.’
Poor Mrs. Lavington! She had married, at eighteen, a man far her inferior in intellect; and had become—as often happens in such cases—a prude and a devotee. ”

“ They had very soon got past the stage during which Donnington had tried to say pretty things to Bubbles.
"Perhaps I did"—he felt the gurgle of amusement in her voice. "I was very hungry, and the food here is very good. It must be costing a lot of money—all this sort of thing. How nice to be rich! Oh, Bill, how very nice to be rich!"
"I don't agree," he said sharply. "Varick doesn't look particularly happy, that I can see."
"I wonder if Aunt Blanche would marry him now?" ”

“ He rose quickly from the couch, and, drawing himself up to his full height, stood on the other side of the table, facing Eugene. O'Donnell, too, drew himself up to his full height, and stared across the table at the other. Lavirotte raised his right hand on high, and, pointing with his finger aloft, said: "Did you hear the boy call?" Jephson, who still stood close to the foot of the ladder, whispered in a thick voice: "Don't touch him. He is only mad." Lavirotte still stood, drawn up to his full height, in his stage costume, with his right hand thrust upward, and his forefinger pointing aloft. ”

“ I must steel myself. Blink!”
For Blink was making tremulous advances to the teeth. “How pleasant to be a dog!” thought Mr. Lavender, “and know nothing of Germans and teeth. I shall be very unhappy till this is out; but Aurora recommended me, and I must not complain, but rather consider myself the most fortunate of public men.” And, ruffling his hair till it stood up all over his head, while his loose eyebrow worked up and down, he gazed at the moon-cat.
“Moon-cat,” he said suddenly, “we are but creatures of chance, unable to tell from one day to another what Fate has in store for us. ”

“ Lavender cudgelled his brains for an easy and natural method of approach, before Blink supplied the necessary avenue by taking her stand before a soldier and looking up into his eye.
“Lord!” said the one thus accosted, “what a fyce! Look at her moustache! Well, cocky, 'oo are you starin' at?”
“My dog,” said Mr. Lavender, perceiving his chance, “has an eye for the strange and beautiful. ”

“ Lavender stood like a clock which has run down, rubbing his eyes. For Blink, roaming the field during the speech, and encountering quadruped called rabbit, which she had never seen before, had backed away from it in dismay, brushed against the farmer's legs and caused his breeches to fall down, revealing the sticks on which they had been draped. When Mr. Lavender saw this he called out in a loud voice Sir, you have deceived me. I took you for a human being. I now perceive that you are but a selfish automaton, rooted to your own business, without a particle of patriotic sense. ”

“ But there is one who does not complain, but gives and gives, and stints herself to give, and weeps in silence and unseen over the evils which she has yearly less and less power to stem.
For in a darkened chamber of the fine house at Steamingbath, lies on a sofa Honoria Lavington—beautiful no more; the victim of some mysterious and agonising disease, about which the physicians agree on one point only—that it is hopeless. The ‘curse of the Lavingtons’ is on her ”

“ He formed a striking group for a painter, with the west wind flinging back his white hair, and fluttering his dark moustache along his cheeks, while Blink, a little in front of him, pointed at the prospect and emitted barks whose vigour tossed her charming head now to this side now to that.
“How beautiful is this earth!” thought Mr. Lavender, “and how simple to be good and happy thereon. Yet must we journey ten leagues beyond the wide world's end to find justice and liberty. There are dark powers like lions ever in the path. ”

“ You may as well walk 'ome, sir. It ain't two miles.
“No! no!” said Mr. Lavender. “We passed the Garden City a little way back; I could go and hold a meeting. How long will you be?”
“A day or two,” said Joe.
Mr. Lavender sighed, and at this manifestation of his grief his sheep-dog redoubled her efforts to comfort him. “Nothing becomes one more than the practice of philosophy,” he thought. “I always admired those great public men who in moments of national peril can still dine with a good appetite. We will sit in the car a little, for I have rather a pain, and think over a speech.” ”

“ Lavender caught the surprised yellow of his eye.
“Hold on,” said the airman, “I'm going to touch her off.”
Mr. Lavender held on, and the machine moved but at this moment Blink, uttering a dismal howl, leapt forward, and, breaking from the attendant's grasp, landed in the machine against Mr. Lavender's chest.
“Stop! stop he cried!” my dog.
“Stuff her down,” said the unmoved airman, “between your legs. She's not the first to go up and won't be the last to come down.”
Mr. Lavender stuffed her down as best he could. “If we are to be killed,” he thought, “it will be together. Blink!” ”

“ Lavender edged away, so that they proceeded up the street crabwise, with Blink adhering jealously to her master's heels.
“Do you know,” said Mr. Lavender, with all the delicacy in his power, “how terribly subversive of the national effort it is to employ your beauty and your grace to snare and slacken the sinews of our glorious youth? The mystery of a woman's glance in times like these should be used solely to beckon our heroes on to death in the field. ”

“ Lavender got into the small boat, taking his canvas with him, but leaving his easel in the fishing-smack. He pulled himself and Johnny Eyre ashore: they scrambled up the rocks and into the road, and then they went into the small white cottage in which Lavender lived. The picture was, for greater safety, left in Lavender's bed-room, which already contained about a dozen canvases with sketches in various stages on them. ”

“ Lavender sat down on the edge of his chair before the tea-tray and extracted his teeth while Blink, taking them for a bone, gazed at them lustrously, and the moon-cat between his feet purred from repletion. “There is reason in all things,” he thought, running his finger over what was left in his mouth, “but not in patriotism, for that would prevent us from consummating the destruction of our common enemies. It behoves us public men ever to set an extreme example. ”

“ For it had suddenly occurred to him that it might be a long time before he had again such an opportunity of addressing a rural audience on the growth of food, and he was loth to throw away the chance. The farmer, however, continued to stand with his hack to the speaker, paying no more heed to his voice than to the buzzing of a fly.
“You SHALL hear me,” cried Mr. Lavender, unconsciously miming a voice from the past, and catching, as he thought, the sound of a titter, he flung his hand out, and exclaimed:
“Grass, gentlemen, grass is the hub of the matter. ”