William Morgan

“ Uncle Mo listened a moment, undisturbed; then said, placidly:—"Water-pipes, I should say." For in a London house no sound, even one like the jerk of a stopped skid on a half-buried boulder, is quite beyond the possible caprice of a choked supply-pipe.
Miss Grahame would have accepted the sound as normal, with some reservation as to the strangeness of everyday noises in this house, but for Aunt M'riar's exclamation, which made her say:—"Isn't that right?" ”

“ In the summer of 1826 it was rumored throughout Western New York that one William Morgan, then living in the village of Batavia, was writing an exposure of the secrets of Free Masonry, under contract with David Miller, a printer of the same place, who was to publish the pamphlet.
Morgan was a man entirely without means ”

“ Challis was talking as gentlemen do when they are lighting a pipe, and thinking more about whether that's enough than about the topic in hand.
"Stomach!" said Mr. Eldridge, as nearly in a monosyllable as spelling permits. He repeated the word just half-a-dozen times in a run; then added this rider: "Say nervous system, when a lady. Puts it better."
"Something of that sort!" The pipe draws, and the smoker ought to look happy. He doesn't. But, then, the sympathetic murmur, with its unguessed import, of Mrs. Eldridge afar, is reaching his ears. ”

“ Gwen explained briefly, and he said:—"Looks as if the doctor took it for granted you would come at once."
"Yes," said Gwen, "on receipt of the letter."
The Countess said, as one whose patience is sorely and undeservedly tried:—"What is it all about? I suppose we are to know." The war and Louis Napoleon and Florence Nightingale lulled, and each asked his neighbour what it was, and was answered:—"Don't know." The Colonel, a man of the fewest possible words, said to the General:—"Rum! Not young Torrens, I suppose?" And the General replied:—"No, no! Old lady of eighty." ”

“ The reference to Maisie was the merest chat by the way; and the conversation, at this mention of the ice, harked back to Sapps Court.
"Of course you made slides, Granny Marrable," said Sister Nora; "and very likely somebody else tumbled down on the slides. But you have never been hanged, and Michael won't be hanged. It was only Uncle Moses's fun. And as for old Mrs. Picture, I daresay if the truth were known, Mrs. Picture's a very nice old lady? I like her for taking such pains with Dave's letter-writing. But we'll see Mrs. Picture, and find out all about it. Won't we, Gwen?" ”

“ One would have thought that the Tuileries had applied to him to accept an appointment as Censor Morum.
"What's old Billy grizzlin' on about?" said Mr. Jeffcoat, the host of The Sun, bringing in another go of the shrub, and a modest small pewter of mild for Uncle Mo, who was welcome at this hostelry even when, as sometimes happened, he drank nothing; so powerful was his moral influence on its status. In fact, the Sporting World, which drank freely, frequented its parlour merely to touch the hand of the great heavyweight of other days, however much he was faded and all his glories past. ”

“ Having, as it were, obsessed this gentleman, in order to get a clear view of this autumn's house-party at Royd, we may as well make further use of him and peep over his shoulder as he writes [35] his first letter to his impossible wife in the cretonne bedroom at the end of the passage where the German Baroness saw the ghost—you know that story, of course? Oh dear, what a lot of candles one does light to write letters by in other people's houses when one hasn't got to pay for them!
This is what Mr. Challis is writing now: "... I like the talky chap better than the son and heir. He's a lord. ”

“ These things happen every day." He went on to narrate how, when his mare Eurydice threw him at Stamford's Croft, he had been carried home unconscious, and remained so over two days. "But your mare had to be shot, my dear," said his wife, vaguely.
When Athelstan Taylor, who had hung back a moment to exchange a few words with the nurse, whom he had met on the stairs coming from Challis's bedside, followed his companions into the mezzanina room, he was surprised and pleased to find the Baronet apparently on the most comfortable and communicative terms with the embarrassing lady-visitor. ”

“ Or of himself, for that matter—so Challis goes on thinking, for all this is what passes in his mind; the story does not vouch for its truth. During their slow ascent of the great staircase together, he is more than half-convinced that the young toff really cares about his views on motoring.
"I am quite aware," says his lordship, pausing at a corner, as though one might go upstairs at any slowness, even with the young man Samuel and a colleague agglomerating gilded porcelain within hearing as tea-factors. ”

“ He was half roused to be put in a clean nightgown that smelt of lavender, and then curled round his hands and forgot the whole Universe.
"What a nice little man he is!" said Sister Nora. "He's quite a baby still, though he's more than six. Some of the London children are so old. But this child's people seem nice and old-fashioned, although his uncle was a prizefighter."
"Laws-a-me!" said Mrs. Ruth. "To think of that now! A prizefighter!" And she had to turn back to Dave's crib, which they were just leaving, to see whether this degraded profession had set its stamp on her prey.... ”

“ These two men had plenty to talk about in the top stratum—enough to fill the day out had they chosen. But the Rector had no intention of leaving the second untouched, and no fear of digging down to the third, if need were. There was, however, no need [546] for either yet awhile. Both might remain in abeyance, under a silent pact, as long, at least, as the sun shone. Serious talk-time comes with lamps and candles. Once in the day Challis was conscious of the thinness of the crust of the second stratum. ”

“ Challis made a show, for his own satisfaction, of going on with his work—but not for very long. As tea-time drew near, he looked at his watch, and decided not to have tea in the drawing-room with his visitor, but to go out. So, when he looked in on Charlotte for a moment, he was in walking trim, and merely shook hands hurriedly, and said: "Marianne must be in soon. She'll never stay to dine at Tulse Hill. I have to go. Ring the bell for tea, and make Harmood attend to you properly. ”

“ She checked off each department on her fingers, imagining clearly—so Mr. Challis, who was watching her, thought—the place in which it was to be located. Then she came to her exception—"But where on earth these tiresome ivorycarvers are to be put I can't imagine!"
Her brother, with perfect gravity, accepted the difficulty as one to be wrestled with. "I don't see why they need be downstairs at all," said he. "Why not put them in—well!—if not in the roof, why not in that room beyond the Art-needlework schools?"
"We can't conveniently have boys and young men passing and repassing." ”

“ Marianne was gone—there was no doubt of it now!
He dropped back, feeling sick, on a chair, face to face with reality. Event agrees ill with men of Challis's temperament, the sort that can become unhealthily excited by the puppets of their own imagination. That railway accident yesterday was bad enough! But this—think of it!—at home, with the children to tell in the morning!
He tried to think—what next? Rouse the servants? Of course; but which servant? Nurse by preference, certainly. Procul absit Steptoe, and even Miss Harmood! He rose, feeling weak ”

“ But let's see Dave's letter." He took and read to himself. "I see," said he. "The cross stood for Dolly's love. A mere proxy. But he sends the real article. I like the 'homliburst,' too. Why did Dolly's lady want to towel Mrs. Spicture?... Oh, I see, it's the name of our house ... h'm—h'm—h'm!... Now where do we come to Muggeridge?... Oh, here we are! I've got it. Well—that's plain enough. Muggeridge. M, U, one G, E, R, I, J for D, G, E. That's quite plain. Can't see what you want more." ”

“ Benjamin was trembling for the flawless blacking of his beautiful boots, and the unsoiled felt of his leggings. Yes, he might go, and get somebody to come out and speak to her ladyship, or herself, as convenient. But while Benjamin was away on this mission, the unexpected came to pass in the form of a boy. We all know how rarely human creatures occur in fields and villages, in England. This sporadic example, in answer to a question "Are you Farmer Jones's boy?" replied guardedly:—"Ees, a be woon."
"Very well then," said Gwen. "Find Farmer Jones, to show us his Bull." ”

“ It was his reference to Uncle Mo's absence at The Sun during the late afternoon. Manifestly, it left the [Pg 395] house in Mr. Wix's imagination untenanted, during some two hours of the day, except by Aunt M'riar, and the children perhaps. And what did they matter?
"You're mighty wise, Juliar, about the party of the house and the fifty-pun' reward." So said the convict when the woman came back, after seeing that Micky had crossed the wall unmolested by authority. "Folk ain't in any such a hurry to get a man hanged when they know what'll happen if they fail of doing it. ”

“ But she couldn't go this time, and, what was more, she had to go on looking alive and lying quiet while Phœbe and Joan shouted good-byes up at the window, as though they were off to New Zealand; because, you see, Lizarann had solemnly promised, if they did so, not to shout back and make herself cough.
"She hardly coughed at all when I was with her," said the Rector, on his way to his weekly pièce de résistance—his Sunday sermon. "I can't help thinking Dr. Sidrophel may be making his fly out an elephant this time."
"Perhaps, dear! But the fly may become an elephant. ”

“ Eldridge throws a bit of good counsel after him as he runs upstairs three steps at a time. "Don't you get in a stoo, Master Titus! Easy does it." He then retires into the parlour, and fidgets, variously. He drums on surfaces that offer themselves, feels about on his razor-farm for interesting incidents, whistles truncated tunes that do not last to identification-point, and frequently repeats, "Nothing to go by—nothing to go by—nothing to go by!" shaking his head and looking profound, till Challis comes [436] quickly downstairs. ”

“ The warmth made her communicative.
"My daddy he's been to sea," she said. "Only in real ships, and come home again. The Flying Dutchman she never come home." This did not explain itself to Mrs. Groves. She drew a false inference.
"She went to the bottom, I lay. And all aboard of her belike. Lord be good to us!"
Lizarann shook her head. "Not the Dutchman. She's afloat, [141] every spar on her,"—she religiously gave Jim's exact words, with a sense of saying a lesson—"and to stop afloat till the Lord comes to judge sinners from repentance." ”

“ The actual collapse of vital forces has not come—will not come for a few days. He can speak a little as she stoops to hear him.
"Young people like you ought to be in bed, chick, getting beauty-sleep. [Pg 250] You must go home, and make your mother go.... You go. I shall be all right...."
"It isn't night, Major dear"—Sally makes a paltry attempt to laugh—"it's three in the afternoon. It's the fog." But she cannot hear what he says in answer to this, go close as she may. After a pause of rest he tries again, with raised voice:
"Roper—Roper—Old Jack ... mustn't come ... asthma in the fog ... ”

“ This phase of reflection did not come immediately on opening Marianne's note. He had passed through a brief epoch of lunch for himself and dinner for Bob and Cat and Emmie since then. It had been a riotous but not unpleasant experience, and Challis was grateful for it. Bob's greeting to him had been, exactly transcribed: "Mater's gone to Tulse Hill. I say!—if you were to give me five shillings, I could buy a phonograph, because I've saved up fifteen. Tommy Eldridge has got one that does a menagerie, and you can hear a man having his head bit off." ”

“ Then he choked it off like, and got a chanst for a word, and he says: 'Now, you young see-saw'—that's what he said, missis, 'see-saw'—'just you stir your stumps and cut along to the clubbus: and tell that dam red-faced fool Mulberry to look sharp and send one of the young fellers to lend an arm, and not to come hisself.' And then he got out a little flat bottle of something short, and went for a nip; but the cough took him, and it sprouted over his wropper and was wasted."
The women look at each other again. ”

“ But she could to his bulk and prowess. "He's thicker than you," she said, and added, with recollection of a combatant defeated by Jimmy Hacker: "He can foight a boy twelve next birthday."
"Then he ain't any so much to count on. I don't go by ages. Weights is what I go by. Any number o' stun I can foight, up to eight stun seven. You tell 'im to keep indoors, or I'll fetch him somethin' for to rek'lect me by. You see!"
But Mother Groves interposed to rebuke and check this inflated and defiant spirit. "Don't you pay no attention to that boy, my dear," said she to Lizarann. ”

“ But young potato-peelings, so called from his father's vocation of costermonger, defended himself with indignation. "Warn't that square?" said he. "He never said I warn't to keep it all, didn't that doctor!" Then he took a high position as of injured virtue. "There's your 'apenny! There's both your 'apennies! Mean to say I 'aven't kep' 'em safe for yer?" Uncle Moses allowed the position of bailee, but disposed of the penny as Solomon suggested in the case of the baby, giving one halfpenny to Michael, and putting the other in Dave's cat on the mantelshelf. ”