Finchley

“ The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English character actor who specialized in London “nuts,” raised his eyebrows, annoyed. Like Mr Pilkington, he had never before come into contact with Mr Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying. He had not yet recovered from the agony of having that water-melon line cut out of his part. It was the only good line, he considered, that he had. Any line that is cut out of an actor’s part is always the only good line he has. ”

“ The Finchleys are going to build a place up at Twelfth Lake next summer, right on the lake, next to the Phants, and Mr. Finchley's going to buy Stuart a thirty-foot launch and build a boathouse with a sun-parlor right over the water to hold it. Won't that be swell, huh?"
"Don't say 'swell.' And don't say 'huh.' Can't you learn to cut out the slang? You talk like a factory girl. ”

“ Fingall!”
Two men, lounging at a fire on a ledge of the hills, raised their eyes to the mountain-side beyond and above them, and one said presently:
“The second time. It's a woman's voice, Pierre.”
Pierre nodded, and abstractedly stirred the coals about with a twig.
“Well, it is a pity—the poor Cynthie,” he said at last.
“It is a woman, then. You know her, Pierre—her story?”
“Fingall! Fingall!—Oh, Fingall!”
Pierre raised his head towards the sound; then after a moment, said:
“I know Fingall.”
“And the woman? Tell me.”
“And the girl. Fingall was all fire and heart, and devil-may-care. ”

“ No: it was not the doctor's day for visiting Dimchurch. I had heard the landlord of the Gross Hands described as a capable and respectable man; and I suggested stopping at the inn, and taking him with us. Mr. Finch instantly brightened at that proposal. His sense of his own importance rose again, like the mercury in a thermometer when you put it into a warm bath.
"Exactly what I was about to suggest," he said. "Gootheridge of the Gross Hands is a very worthy person—for his station in life. Let us have Gootheridge, by all means. Don't be alarmed, Madame Pratolungo. ”

“ It is so easy to say, "You ought to have done something." Whom could I consult? The worthy old nurse only held the position of servant. Could I address myself to the lymphatic lady with the baby in one hand, and the novel in the other? Absurd! her stepmother was not to be thought of. Her father? Judging by hearsay, I had not derived a favorable impression of the capacity of Reverend Finch for interfering successfully in a matter of this sort. However, he was her father; and I could feel my way cautiously with him at first. Hearing Zillah moving about the corridor, I went out to her. ”

“ Finch said: "I've got to do some practising."
"No, dear," replied his sister, firmly. "It's tea-time, You can't practise now. It's time for tea."
"But, look here," cried Finch. "I shan't get any practising to-night, then. I've a lot of lessons to do."
"You shouldn't be so late coming home. That's one reason I didn't want you to have such an expensive teacher. It's so worrying when there's no opportunity for practising. But, of course, Alayne would have it."
"Darn it all!" bawled Finch. "Why can't I practise in peace?"
"Finch, go upstairs this instant and change into dry things." ”

“ It was absolutely a luxury to fall back again into the common-place daily routine of life. I asked to whom the letter was addressed? Nugent answered, "The letter is addressed to me; and the writer is Mr. Finch."
Having read the letter, he turned to Lucilla.
"I sent a message to your father, asking him to join us here," he said. "Mr. Finch writes back to say that his duties keep him at home, and to suggest that the rectory is the fitter place for the discussion of family matters. Have you any objection to return to the house? And do you mind going on first with Madame Pratolungo?" ”

“ Fingall had first looked out at him from her husband’s famous portrait of her, so frail, so pale under the gloom and glory of her hair, and he had been told how the sight of her had suddenly drawn the painter’s genius from its long eclipse. Fingall had found her among the art students of one of the Parisian studios which he fitfully inspected, had rescued her from financial difficulties and married her within a few weeks of their meeting: French had had the tale from Lady Brankhurst, who was an encyclopædia of illustrious biographies. ”

“ Are you a man or are you a kitchen hound?”
Mr. Fink dropped his paper, motionless from surprise. She feared that he would not strike—that the provocation had been insufficient. She leaped at him and struck him fiercely in the face with her clenched hand. In that instant she felt a thrill of love for him such as she had not felt for many a day. Rise up, Martin Fink, and come into your kingdom! Oh, she must feel the weight of his hand now—just to show that he cared—just to show that he cared!
Mr. Fink sprang to his feet—Maggie caught him again on the jaw with a wide swing of her other hand. ”

“ FINCH, ANNE, Countess of Winchilsea (d. 1720) , poetess, was the daughter of Sir William Kingsmill of Sidmonton, near Southampton, and the wife of Heneage Finch, second son of Heneage, second earl of Winchilsea [q. v.] Her husband succeeded to the title as fourth earl on the death of his nephew Charles in 1712. Finch was gentleman of the bedchamber to James II when Duke of York, and his wife maid of honour to the second duchess. ”

“ I hear Oscar hammering away at his chasing, and whistling blithely over his work. In another room, Lucilla is teaching the piano to her little girl. On my table is a letter from Mrs. Finch, dated from one of our distant colonies—over which Mr. Finch (who has risen gloriously in the world) presides pastorally as bishop. He harangues the "natives" to his heart's content: and the wonderful natives like it. "Jicks" is in her element among the aboriginal members of her father's congregation: there are fears that the wandering Arab of the Finch family will end in marrying "a chief." ”

“ Judging by certain signs visible in my reverend friend, I concluded that the announcement of Nugent Dubourg's coming visit to Dimchurch—regarded by the rest of us as heralding the appearance of a twin-brother—was regarded by Mr. Finch as promising the arrival of a twin-fortune. Oscar and Nugent shared the comfortable paternal inheritance. Finch smelt money.
"Compose yourself," I whispered to Lucilla as the two gentlemen followed us into the sitting-room. "Your jealousy of his brother is a childish jealousy. There is room enough in his heart for his brother as well as for you." ”

“ Finch, "it is impossible for me to remain passive. As a brother-clergyman, I have, I conceive, a claim on the rector of the parish. It is quite likely that notice may have been already given of this fraudulent marriage. In that case, it is not only my duty to myself and my child—it is my duty to the Church, to confer with my reverend colleague. I go to confer with him." He strutted to the door, and added, "If Lucilla arrives in my absence, I invest you with my authority, Madame Pratolungo, to detain her until my return." With that parting charge to me, he walked out.
I looked at Oscar. ”

“ To the reverend gentleman's amazement, it was I who began—and not he.
"I have just left Lucilla, Mr. Finch. I know what has happened."
"Wait a minute, Madame Pratolungo! One thing is of the utmost importance to begin with. Do you thoroughly understand that I am, in no sense of the word, to blame—?"
"Thoroughly," I interposed. "Of course, they would not have gone to Browndown, if you had consented to let Nugent Dubourg into the house."
"Stop!" said Mr. Finch, elevating his right hand. "My good creature, you are in a state of hysterical precipitation. I will be heard! ”

“ Nugent, to read aloud in my family circle. As a clergyman and a lover of poetry (in both capacities) I have long cultivated the art of elocution——"
"My dear sir, excuse me, you have cultivated it all wrong!"
Mr. Finch paused, thunderstruck. A man in his presence presuming to have an opinion of his own! a man in the rectory parlor capable of interrupting the rector in the middle of a sentence! guilty of the insane audacity of telling him, as a reader—with Shakespeare open before them—that he read wrong! ”

“ I ventured to stop him: mentioning that Lucilla's letter had informed me of his daughter's sudden departure for her aunt's house. Mr. Finch waved away my answer with his hand, as something too infinitely unimportant to be worthy of a moment's notice.
"Yes! yes! yes!" he said. "You have a superficial acquaintance with the facts. But you are far from being aware of what my daughter's sudden removal of herself from my roof really means. Now don't be frightened, Madame Pratolungo! and don't excite Mrs. Finch! ”

“ Finkelstein's at all, it mortified my vanity so cruelly to have to do it. I felt as though I should like to seek out some obscure hiding-place in the remotest quarter of the world, and bury myself there forever from the sight of men. “O, Rip!” I cried, “I should just like to bag my head.”
Of course, as I opened the shop door, the bell above it must needs tinkle; and in response to this summons Mr. Finkelstein himself issued from the parlor.
“What, Kraikory!” he exclaimed at sight of me. “Back so soon? Ach! I tought it was a customer. Vail, it's you yourself, and no mistake about it.” ”

“ I said to Reverend Finch's boy, "Is this a rich place?" Reverend Finch's boy brightened and answered, "That it be!" Good. At any rate, they don't enjoy themselves here—the infamous rich!
Leaving this town of unamused citizens immured in domestic tombs, we got on a fine high road—still ascending—with a spacious open country on either side of it.
A spacious open country is a country soon exhausted by a sight-seer's eye. I have learnt from my poor Pratolungo the habit of searching for the political convictions of my fellow-creatures, when I find myself in contact with them in strange places. ”

“ I want things at wrong times—breakfast in the middle of the night; dinner at four in the morning. I want something now!" Mr. Finch stopped, horror-struck at his condition; pondering with his eyebrows fiercely knit, and his hand pressed convulsively on the lower buttons of his rusty black waistcoat. Mrs. Finch's watery blue eyes looked across the room at me, in a moist melancholy of conjugal distress. The rector, suddenly enlightened after his consultation with his stomach, strutted to the door, flung it wide open, and called down the kitchen stairs with a voice of thunder, "Poach me an egg!" ”

“ But the child, a girl of eighteen months, woke with a cry, “Mamma! mamma!” and at the sound the mother’s eyes unclosed.
“Give her to me—my little Ethel!” she said faintly.
“You are ill, my good woman, not able to hold her,” Mrs. Kemper said, as she reluctantly complied with the request.
“Yes, and I—have eaten nothing to-day—and have walked many miles.”
“Poor soul!” exclaimed Irene, the kind-hearted mistress of the shanty, coming in with the tea. “Here, drink this, and I’ll bring you some supper. You look more dead than alive, and the rain has soaked you through and through. Dear, dear! ”

“ You would say he had been brought up a bushelman in Essex Street. When business is slack he likes to talk, so I had my hat cleaned even oftener than it deserved, hoping Finch might let me into some of the secrets of the sweatshops.
One afternoon I dropped in and found Finch alone. He began to anoint my headpiece de Panama with his mysterious fluid that attracted dust and dirt like a magnet.
"They say the Indians weave 'em under water," said I, for a leader.
"Don't you believe it," said Finch. "No Indian or white man could stay under water that long. Say, do you pay much attention to politics? ”

“ Raymond would be pleased to alight and walk into the parlor.
"Thank you, no," Violet said. "We have come merely to pick up Lulu and take her to church with us. Come, dear," to the little girl; "the professor will help you in, if you are quite ready to go."
"Yes, Mamma Vi," Lulu answered eagerly, and with the aid of the professor's hand quickly climbed to her place.
"Mamma Vi, you are very good," she said, as the carriage rolled on again.
"Yes, isn't she?" said Max. "She says she isn't at all afraid to trust me to drive her." ”

“ She not only knows nothing herself, but she operates as a check on Mr. Finch—who would otherwise have joined his daughter at Ramsgate, and have instantly exposed the conspiracy. On every side of him, Nugent is, to all appearance, safe. I am away in one direction. Oscar is away in another. Mrs. Finch is anchored immovably in her nursery. Zillah has been sent back from London to the rectory. The Dimchurch doctor (who attended Oscar, and who might have proved an awkward witness) is settled in India—as you will see, if you refer to the twenty-second chapter. ”

“ Finch's approval: I am, so to speak, backed by Mr. Finch.'—Mrs. Finch! I wish you to understand the object of the bath. Hold your tongue. The object is to produce a gentle action on your skin. One of the women is to keep her eye on your forehead. The instant she perceives an appearance of moisture, she is to run for me.—Oscar! you will let me know at what decision they arrive, up-stairs in my daughter's room. ”