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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Principal Girl," J. C. Snaith intricately weaves a narrative that explores the complexities of gender dynamics and identity within the theater world of the early 20th century. The novel employs a rich, descriptive prose style, reflecting Snaith's deep understanding of dramatic literature while also utilizing elements of realism that bring to life the nuanced struggles of its characters. Set against the vibrant backdrop of a touring theater company, Snaith deftly portrays the ambitions, disappointments, and moral dilemmas faced by those who inhabit this unique microcosm of society. The text resonates with the prevailing themes of its era, such as the questioning of traditional roles and the quest for personal fulfillment amid societal expectations. J. C. Snaith, an accomplished writer and playwright, drew upon his own experiences in theater to craft this insightful work. His familiarity with the intricacies of performance and his astute observations on the role of women in the arts during a time of great change undoubtedly informed the creation of the character-driven narrative. Having witnessed the evolution of female roles both on and off stage, Snaith's perspective offers a compelling lens through which to consider the challenges faced by women in a male-dominated industry. For readers interested in feminist literature or the intersection of art and identity, "The Principal Girl" stands as a significant contribution. Snaith's engaging storytelling, combined with his keen social commentary, invites readers to reflect on the ongoing relevance of these themes. This novel is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the evolution of women's roles in literature and the arts in a way that resonates with contemporary issues. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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The principal girl
Table of Contents
The principal girl
CHAPTER IA GREAT PROCONSUL; AND OTHER PHENOMENA
The great Proconsul stood on one of Messrs. Maple’s best hearthrugs in Grosvenor Square. A typical payer of the super-tax, a pink and prosperous gentleman in a morning coat and striped trousers, his appearance had long commanded the admiration of his country.
He had not ruled the teeming millions of the Ganges, although the strength of his digestion and his absence of imagination would at any time have enabled him to do so. But for a period of nine weeks he had been the Resident of Barataria North-West; and partly for that reason and partly for a reason even more cogent, he had the distinction of being the last peer created by Mr. Vandeleur’s last government.
The world is familiar with Sir William Richmond’s fine portrait of Walter Augustus, first Baron Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth now, on loan at the National Portrait Gallery. In this the national asset appears as he encountered his Sovereign in knee breeches, silk stockings, shoe buckles and other regalia.
Competent judges consider it an excellent likeness, and of course quite unexceptionable as a work of art. It is the portrait of a happily endowed Englishman in his manly prime, to which the nation at large is able to refer between the hours of ten and four, Fridays excepted.
Eton, Balliol, diplomacy, private means, together with various places of emolument under the Crown, had each a share in raising Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth to his elevation. A first baron certainly, but not a mushroom growth. The honors of a grateful nation had come to him mainly because he had not been able to avoid them. From early youth he had been ranged with those who always do the right thing at the right time in the right way. He had always hit the bull’s-eye so exactly in the centre that public regard had had to strive to keep pace with his progress.
Up till the age of one-and-thirty, Shelmerdine—not then of Potterhanworth—had like humbler mortals just a sporting chance of getting off the target. But at the age of thirty-one he married. By that judicious action he forfeited any little chance he may have had of dying an obscure, private individual.
Sociologists differ as to what is the most portentous phenomenon of the age in which we dwell, but there is a body of the well-informed which awards the palm unhesitatingly to that amiable institution, the Suffolk Colthurst[1].
The world is under great obligations to this interesting representative of the higher mammalia. The upper reaches of Theology are whitened with the bones of the Suffolk Colthurst. It makes an almost ideal Under-Secretary, it is always so smooth-spoken and well-brushed; it makes a most excellent Judge; there is no place of emolument it is not fitted to grace; and in the unlikely event of a doubt invading your mind as to whether the particular schoolmaster will be inducted to the vacant see of Wincanton, you have only to look up which branch it was of the Suffolk Colthursts into which he married, and at what period of his life he married her.
What would be the Established Order without the Colthurst of Suffolk? What would be the Navy and Army, Law and Medicine, Parliament itself, Art—and yes, gentlemen!—Letters, without the Colthurst of Suffolk?
It is an error, however, to suppose that this pleasant phenomenon confines itself to one little corner of the globe. The Colthurst is indigenous to Suffolk, but for generations there has been quite a colony settled in Kent. There is also the world-famous Scotch variety, and of late traces of the Suffolk Colthurst have been found in America. The Transatlantic mind, never slow at diagnosis, and with its trick of masterful and telling speech, has already ventured to define its creed. In America the creed of the Suffolk Colthurst has been defined as the Art of Getting There with Both Feet.
Please do not assume that there is anything ignoble about the Colthurst of Suffolk. Quite the contrary. It has been laid down as a general principle that the Suffolk Colthurst never makes money but always marries it. That is not to say, of course, that a Suffolk Colthurst has never been known to make money, because such a statement, however pleasant, would be in excess of the truth. But the Suffolk Colthurst, pur sang, sets less store by the making of money than by the spending of money in the way that shows it has always had money to spend.
As a matter of fact it always has had money to spend. As soon as banking, brewing, land-jobbing, share-broking, and other polite arts began to flourish in Suffolk, the Colthurst began to marry and to give in marriage. And to this day if you enter a small private bank in a quiet cathedral city, and you take the trouble to make inquiries, you are quite likely to learn that the local Suffolk Colthurst has the chief proprietary interest in the concern. The family has always been partial to banking. It is such an eminently sensible practice to lend money at double the rate at which you borrow it; and it has the additional advantage that you can’t call it Trade.
Our immediate business, however, is with the blameless gentleman who at the age of one-and-thirty was accepted in marriage by a charming representative of the genus, and at the age of nine-and-fifty was made a peer by Mr. Vandeleur’s government, immediately antecedent to its total and permanent eclipse.
To return, then, to Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth. For nearly an hour had he occupied the tasteful hearthrug provided by Messrs. Maple. A frown chequered his serene front and several times he had recourse to the Leading Morning Journal which lay open on his writing-table at page four.
At the top of the third column was a communication dated from the Helicon Club, S. W. It was signed by himself and had been crowned with the glory of the largest type you could have without having to pay for it. Immediately below, in type equally glorious, were communications veiled in the discreet anonymity of “A Lover of Animals” and “Verax.”
Discreet anonymity is disagreeable as a rule. The fact was the great Proconsul was in the act of rendering a signal service to the Public; and in consequence the Public did not thank him for his interference. To be sure, it was the first time in his life that he had been guilty of such an indiscretion. This was his first single-handed attempt to render a service to society at large; and, as was only to be expected, society at large was not making itself very pleasant about it.
There could be no doubt that at this moment the great Proconsul was the most unpopular man in London. Old ladies in ermine tippets scowled at him as he passed along Park Lane; and a hostess of mark, famous for her wealth and her humanity, had already crossed him out of her dinner list.
CHAPTER IITOUCHES UPON A MATTER OF GRAVE PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Of what crime, do you suppose, has S. of P. been guilty? It was merely that in a public print he had ventured to ask why the payment of the nominal sum of seven and sixpence per annum conferred upon the dogs of London certain privileges in respect of its pavements which society at large, for some little time past, has ceased to claim.
The resources of civilization were ranged already against Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth. Nice-minded women in point lace refused to meet the self-constituted champion of public amenity; the black-velveted mistresses of the Flossies and the Fidos thought the state of his mind must be unpleasant; he was an object of contumely where all that was fair and of good report held sway in the life of the metropolis.
It was a pretty quarrel, and both sides were sustaining it with spirit. The Pro-Darlings, with Verax and a Lover of Animals at their head, had rejoined with mannerly vituperation to the polished sarcasm of the Anti-Darlings. What is your remedy? had inquired the Friends of Fido with a rather obvious sneer. Banish the dumb creation from the pavements of great cities, had replied Inspired Commonsense.
And for our own poor part, Commissioners of the Office of Works, we think that reply is worth a statue.
Verax was making merry though at the expense of a public ornament, and the occupant of Messrs. Maple’s best hearthrug, who remembered Verax perfectly well as a grubby infant at his private school, had already formed the pious resolve of putting the fear of God into Verax.
S. of P., having pondered long, sat down at his writing-table; dipped his quill with a certain inherent natural grandeur, and started out on his crushing reply:—“Sir, I have read with amazement the diatribe against my humble and unworthy self which appears under the signature of Verax, to which you have extended the generous hospitality of your columns.”
At this point S. of P. bit his quill with such violence that a large blot was shaken from the end of it upon the monogram which decorated the communication.
“The problem as I envisage it”—S. of P. took a small gold pencil out of his waistcoat pocket and made a note on his blotting pad. “The problem as I envisage it”—but the problem that he did envisage was the Suffolk Colthurst, who at that moment entered the room.
The Suffolk Colthurst was large and blonde—so large and so blonde that to a profane mind she rather conveyed the suggestion of a particularly well-grown cauliflower.
“Wally, please, don’t let me spoil your morning. Don’t let me interrupt you, please.”
The voice of the Suffolk Colthurst was really quite agreeable, although a little light in the upper register. You might even call it flutelike if you cared to indulge in metaphor.
“Not at all, Agatha,” said S. of P. with excellent chest resonance. “I am merely envisaging the problem of the—ah—”
“Don’t, Wally.” The voice of the Suffolk Colthurst was perhaps a shade less flutelike if history really calls for these nuances. “You are making yourself ridiculous. Please drop the subject.”
“No, Agatha.” The sun setting over Africa might be compared to the brow of the great Proconsul. “Man in The Thunderer most impertinent. Signs himself Verax. Suspect it’s that fellow—”
“Wally.” The Suffolk Colthurst roared here a little less gently than usual. “I will not uphold you! Everybody thinks it is most injudicious.”
“Everybody, Agatha?”
“Paul and Millicent consider—”
“Public health, Agatha, public dec—”
“Wally, once for all, I absolutely refuse to discuss the subject. I will not have you make yourself ridiculous.”
The Suffolk Colthurst, with an approximation to natural majesty, put on a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses which were suspended round her neck by a cord, and took the Leading Morning Journal off the First Baron’s table.
“Impertinent, certainly. Sarcasm, I suppose.”
“Suspect it’s that fellow Huffham, because I declined to propose him under Rule Two.”
“Certainly you do appear to have laid yourself open, but the letter is most ill-natured.”
“As though I should be likely to propose him. Known the man all my life.”
The Suffolk Colthurst gathered her majestic inches for the ultimatum.
“Wally, you must listen to me. This matter has already gone too far. Let it drop. It is the first time I have known you go out of your way to make yourself ridiculous.”
“Public health, Agatha, public decency.”
“Leave it to the County Council.”
“They are not competent to envisage such a problem as this. And I am determined, in the face of that letter—”
“Paul says that no man can afford to make himself a public laughing-stock.”
“Paul’s a coward.”
“Paul says they are certain to make you an Apostle.”
“Eh?”
“If you don’t make a fool of yourself.”
“Paul said that! Why, pray, should they make me an Apostle?”
“Because there’s nobody else; and people will say the race has already passed its zenith if the vacancy is not filled up at once.”
“I will say this for Paul—he is well-informed as a rule.”
“Wait, Wally, until you are an Apostle.”
“Very well then, with the greatest possible reluctance I yield the point for the present. Verax shall wait until—Tell me, Agatha, what have you to say to me?”
The good, the noble—forgive our fervor, O ye Liberal organs of opinion, even if your bosoms be not thrilled by this whole-souled devotion to the public weal—the good and noble Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth flung the offending print upon Messrs. Maple’s expensive carpet in a sudden uncontrollable access of private pique.
“Agatha.” The accents of the great Proconsul were choked with emotion. “Tell me, Agatha, what you have to say to me?”
“Wally,” said the Suffolk Colthurst, “what I have to say to you is this.”
CHAPTER IIIIS DOMESTIC IN THE MAIN, BUT WE HOPE NOT UNWORTHY OF A GREAT CONSTITUTIONAL STATESMAN
When you are up against a serious anticlimax it is a golden rule to begin a fresh chapter.
The Suffolk Colthurst paused, and sat with a further access of natural majesty upon a chair Louis Quinze, supplied, like the hearthrug, by Tottenham Court Road.
“Wally, Philip has declined to come to the Queen’s Hall this afternoon to hear Busoni[2].”
Doing his best even in this dangerous anticlimax, S. of P. retrieved the Leading Morning Journal from the carpet, straightened out its crumpled folds with patient humility, laid it on the table, sat down in his own chair—Tottenham Court Road of the best period—put up his eyeglass—by Cary of Pall Mall, maker to the Admiralty—and, in the voice of one pronouncing a benediction, said, “Well, Agatha?”
“Actually declined. Tells me he’s engaged to a pantomime at Drury Lane.”
“Matter of taste, I suppose.”
“Taste, Wally! Dear Adela is coming, and I have taken such trouble to arrange this.”
The Proconsul showed a little perturbation.
“No accounting for taste, I presume. Why a man of his age, rising twenty-eight, should prefer—”
“Wally, it is very wrong, and you must speak to him. It is not kind to dear Adela. Please ring the bell.”
The Proconsul rang the bell, and a young and very good-looking footman attended the summons.
“Joseph,” said his mistress, “if Mr. Philip has not gone yet, tell him, please, that his father would like to see him.”
After a lapse of about five minutes, a young man sauntered into the library. He was a somewhat somber-looking young man in a chocolate-colored suiting.
“Good morning, Philip,” said the First Baron.
“Mornin’, father,” said the heir to the barony.
“Philip,” said the First Baron, “your mother tells me that you have declined to accompany her and Adela Rocklaw to the Albert Hall this afternoon to hear Paderewski.”
The heir to the barony knitted the intellectual forehead that was his by inheritance.
“Not declined, you know, exactly. It’s a bit of a mix. I thought the concert was next Saturday.” Mr. Philip was a slow and rather heavy young man, but his air was quite sweet and humble, and not without a sort of tacit deference for both parents. “Fact is, I was keepin’ next Saturday.”
“Why not go this afternoon as you have got wrong in the date? Your mother has been at so much trouble, and I am sure Adela Rocklaw will be disappointed.”
“Unfortunately I’ve fixed up this other thing.”
“Engaged to a music hall, I understand.”
“Pantomime at Drury Lane,” said Philip the sombre.
“Quite so.” The Proconsul, like other great men, was slightly impatient of meticulous detail in affairs outside his orbit. “Hardly right, is it, to disappoint Adela Rocklaw, especially after your mother”—Mother, still mounted on the Louis Quinze, sat with eyelids lowered but very level—“has taken so much trouble? At least I, at your age, should not have thought so.”
Mr. Philip pondered a little.
“A bit awkward perhaps. I say, Mater, don’t you think you could fix up another day?”
The gaze of Mother grew a little less abstract at this invocation.
“Impossible, Phil-ipp”—the Rubens-Minerva countenance, whose ample chin was folded trebly in rolls of adipose tissue was a credit to the Governing Classes—“Dear Adela goes to High Cliff on Wednesday for the shooting.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” said Mr. Philip quite nicely and politely, “that I shall have to go to Drury Lane this afternoon.”
“Have to go, Phil-ipp!” Still ampler grew the Governing Classes. “It is really impossible in the circumstances.”
“What circumstances, Mater?”
“Dear Adela.”
“She won’t mind, if you explain. It’s like this, you see. Teddy Clapham has taken a box for his kids, and I promised ’em I’d be there—and you can’t go back on your word with kids, can you?”
“Why not, Phil-ipp?” inquired the Governing Classes.
“Sort of gives ’em wrong views about things, you know.”
“How absurd,” said Mother. “Much too sentimental about children nowadays. Telephone to Mr. Clapham and explain the circumstances. I am sure he will understand that as dear Adela is going to High Cliff on Wednesday—”
A cloud gathered on the brow of Philip.
“May be wrong, you know, Mater, but I really can’t go back on my word with kids. I promised ’em, you know, and that little Marge is a nailer, and she is only five.”
The statement, in spite of its sincerity, did not seem to carry conviction to either parent.
The heir to the barony was a dutiful young man; at least, in an age which has witnessed a somewhat alarming decline in parental authority, he passed as such. His deference, perhaps, was not of a type aggressively old-fashioned, but he honored his father and his mother.
“I’ll get a box for the ‘Chocolate Soldier’ on Monday if you and Adela will come, Mater, but I don’t see how I can throw over Teddy Clapham’s kids—five of ’em—toddlers—and they ain’t got a mother, you know.”
“Phil-ipp, this is ridiculous. And dear Adela will be so disappointed, and on Monday there is a reception at the Foreign Office.”
“You can go on afterwards.”
“But your father and I are engaged to dinner with the Saxmundhams.”
“Well, Mater, I’m sorry. I hope you’ll explain to Adela. Got mixed in the date and if it hadn’t been kids I really would in the circumstances—”
The door knob was now in the hand of the heir to the barony. Parthian bolts were launched at him, but he made good his escape.
“It’s a nuisance,” he muttered as he closed the door behind him, “but I really don’t see what’s to be done in the circumstances.”
In the entrance hall he put on his hat and was helped by Joseph into an overcoat with an astrachan collar; from the hall stand he took a whanghee cane with massive silver mountings, and sauntered forth pensively to his house of call, that was not very far from the corner of Hamilton Place.
Arrived at that desirable bourn, his first act was to ring up 00494 Wall.
“That you, Teddy? Have you told the kids to feed early to be in time for the risin’ of the curtain? Yes, I’ve bought the Bukit Rajahs. Think so? Yes, not a minute later than a quarter-past one.”
Replacing the receiver, the heir to the barony of Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth recruited exhausted nature with a whisky and apollinaris, and put forth from the chaste portals of the Button Club. Adventures were lying in wait for him, however.
As he rounded the corner into Piccadilly, a little unwarily, it must be confessed, he nearly collided with the Ne Plus Ultra of fashion in the person of a tall and decidedly smart young woman, in a rather tight black velvet hobble and a charming mutch with a small strip of white fur above the left eyelid.
CHAPTER IVIN WHICH THE GENTLE READER HAS THE HONOR OF AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SEVENTH UNMARRIED DAUGHTER OF NOT QUITE A HUNDRED EARLS
TheNe Plus Ultra had just achieved the feat of crossing from the Green Park in the charge of a quadruped of whom we are at a loss to furnish a description more explicit. How and why it had been allowed to escape a death by violence at the instance of the passing motor and other mechanically propelled vehicles was yet another of the dark secrets which must be left in the keeping of its Maker.
“Hulloa, Adela!”
Jamming the brakes hard on, the heir to the barony was just able to avert a forcible impact with the fearsome four-footed beast which measured eighteen inches and a quarter from the tip of its tail to the end of its muzzle.
“What is it, Adela? Win it in a raffle?”
The seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls was a little inclined to stiffen at this freedom with an Honorable Mention at the Crystal Palace.
“It is a pure-bred rough-haired Himalayan Dust Spaniel[3], and they are very rare.”
“I hope so.”
This ill-timed remark did not seem to help the conversation. The seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls—she was the daughter of only three earls really, although for that she cannot accept responsibility—tilted her chin to its most aristocratic angle and displayed considerable reserve of manner.
An eyelash, lengthy and sarcastic, flickered upon her cheek.
“Pure-bred rough-coated Himalayan Dust Spaniel,” said the heir to the barony. “Stick him in your muff, or you might lose him.”
“You are coming to the concert, aren’t you?” said the seventh unmarried daughter in a tone singularly detached and cool.
“No, I’m afraid,” said the heir to the barony. “Awfully sorry, Adela, but fact is I’ve got mixed in the day. Thought it was next Saturday.”
“Oh, really.”
“So I’ve promised five little kidlets I’d take ’em to the Pantomime at Drury Lane. You don’t mind, Adela, do you?—or I say, would you care to come? You’ll find it a deal more amusin’ than Paderewski. We’ve got a box, and there’ll be any amount of room. And you won’t need a chaperone with five kids and their nannas, and the Mater needn’t go to Kubelik then, because she hates all decent music worse than I do. Better come, Adela. Pantomime is awfully amusin’, and you’ll like Clapham if you haven’t met him—chap, you know, that married poor little Bridgit Brady.”
“Thanks,” said the young madam, “but I think I prefer Busoni.”
The heir to the barony was rather concerned by the tone of Miss Insolence.
“You aren’t rattled, are you, Adela?” said he. “I’ve made a horrid mess of it, and I’m to blame and all that, but you can’t go back on your word with kids, can you[1q]? If you come I’m sure you’ll like it, and that little Marge is a nailer, and she is only five.”
The long-lashed orb from beneath the charming mutch showed very cold and blue.
“Thanks, but I think I prefer Busoni. Come, Fritz.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” said the penitent heir; and the rather tight hobble and the charming mutch and the pure-bred Himalayan dust spaniel moved round the corner of Hamilton Place in review order.
Humbled and undone, the heir to the barony sauntered up the street, past the Cavalry, past the Savile and past the Bath, until, broken in spirit he stayed his course before the chocolate shop of B. Venoist.
“She’s as cross as two sticks,” sighed the heir to the barony, as he gazed in at the window. “Always was a muddlin’ fool—but you can’t go back on your word with kids, can you? Now I must be careful which sort I choose. I expect that sort in pink boxes will make ’em as sick as Monday mornin’.”
In this opinion, however, B. Venoist did not concur. He assured the heir to the barony that it was exactly the same quality as that supplied to Buckingham Palace, The Durdans, High Cliff Castle and Eaton Hall.
“If that is so,” said the heir to the barony, “I think I’ll risk a box.” “Looks pretty poisonous,” he added—although not to B. Venoist.
“You’ll find that all right, sir,” said B. Venoist. “Precisely the same quality as supplied to York Cottage.”
“I’m glad o’ that,” said the heir to the barony, disbursing a sum in gold and dangling a large but neat white paper parcel from his index finger.
“Cross as two sticks,” mused the stricken young man, putting forth from the chocolate shop of B. Venoist, and bestowing a nod in passing upon a choice light blue striped necktie.
By some odd association of ideas this article of attire was responsible for his course being stayed before his favorite shop window a little farther along the street: to wit, of Mr. Thomas Ling, whose neckties in the opinion of some are as nice as any in London.
“Have you an Old Etonian Association necktie?” he asked of Mr. Thomas Ling, although he knew quite well that Mr. Thomas Ling had, and a Ramblers’ also if he had required it.
“The narrow or the broad, sir?” said Mr. Thomas Ling.
“The broad,” said the heir to the barony; but at Mr. Thomas Ling’s look of frank incredulity, he corrected it to “the narrow.”
Armed with the narrow, the heir to the barony left the shop of Mr. Thomas Ling poorer by the sum of five and sixpence, and also by a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist which he had the misfortune to leave upon the counter.
“Cross as two sticks,” muttered the stricken young man as he reached the very end of the celebrated thoroughfare, and gazed an instant into the window of Messrs. Wan & Sedgar to see how their famous annual winter sale was getting on in the absence of the winter.
The mind of the heir to the barony hovered not unpleasantly, for all its unhappiness, over a peculiarly chaste display of silk and woolen pajamas, three pairs for two guineas, guaranteed unshrinkable, when with a shock he awoke to the fact that he was no longer the proud possessor of a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist.
“I’m all to pieces this mornin’,” registered the vain young man on the inner tablets of his nature. Thereupon he took out his watch, a gold hunting repeater, a present from his mother when he came of age, and in a succinct form apostrophized his Maker.
“My God! nine minutes to one and I’ve got to collect the kids from Eaton Place and the bally show begins at one-thirty. Here, I say!”
The heir to the barony hailed a passing taxi.
“Call at Ling’s up on the right, and then drive like the devil to 300 Eaton Place.”
“Right you are, sir,” said the driver of the taxi, in such flagrant contravention of the spirit of the Public Vehicles Act 9 Edwardus VII Cap III that we much regret being unable to remember his number.
It was the work of two minutes for the heir to the barony to retrieve the box of best assorted chocolates from the custody of Mr. Thomas Ling up on the right, and then the driver of the taxi sat down in the saddle and was just proceeding to let her out a bit, in accordance with instructions, when Constable X held him up peremptorily at the point where Bond Street converges upon B. Venoist. Not, however, we are sorry to say, in order to take the number of this wicked chauffeur, engaged in breaking an Act of Parliament for purposes of private emolument, but merely to enable an old lady in a stole of black mink and a black hat with white trimmings, together with a Pekinese sleeve dog, lately the property of the Empress of China, to cross the street and buy a box of water colors for her youngest nephew.
Certainly she was a very dear old lady; but the heir to the barony cursed her bitterly, as, gold hunting repeater in hand, he vowed that the kids would not be in time for the rising of the curtain. Part of his blame overflowed upon the head of Constable X; and we ourselves concur in this, because we certainly think that, if stop the traffic he must, it behooved him, as the appointed guardian of the public peace, to take the number of this guilty chauffeur.
As it was, the driver of the taxi, owing to this dereliction of duty upon the part of Constable X—a kind man certainly, and about to become a sergeant—sat down again in the saddle and proceeded to let her out a bit further. So that anon, swinging along that perilous place where four-and-twenty metropolitan ways converge, yclept Hyde Park Corner, he came within an ace of running down a perfectly blameless young man in an old bowler hat and a reach-me-down, the author of this narrative, who was on his way to consult with his respected publisher as to whether a work of ripe philosophy would do as well in the autumn as in the spring.
The young man in the old bowler hat—old but good of its kind, purchased of Mr. Lock in the street of Saint James on the strength of “the success of the spring season” (for the reach-me-down no defense is offered)—the young man in the old bowler hat stepped back on to the pavement with as much agility as an old footballer’s knee would permit, and cursed the occupant of the taxi by all his gods for a bloated plutocrat, and in the unworthy spirit of revenge vowed to make him the hero of his very next novel.
A cruel revenge, but not, we think, unjustified. Idle rich young fellow—toiled not, neither did he spin—nursing a gold hunting repeater in a coat with an astrachan collar and one of Messrs. Scott’s latest—with a red face and a suspicion of fur upon the upper lip—taking five kids who had lost their mother to the pantomime without his lunch—how dare he run down a true pillar of democracy at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour!
At nine minutes past one by the gold hunting repeater, in the middle of Victoria Street, the hard thought occurred to the young man that he would get no lunch. Still, let us not overdo our regard for his heroism. He had not finished his breakfast until something after eleven, and his breakfast had consisted of three devilled kidneys on toast, a plate of porridge, a grilled sole, muffins, marmalade and fruit ad libitum, but still the young chap was undoubtedly going to miss his luncheon.
At twelve minutes past one by the gold hunting repeater, the heir to the barony was acclaimed in triumph from the threshold of Number 300 Eaton Place by five kids and their nannas, who were beginning almost to fear that Uncle Phil had forgotten to call for ’em.
“It is only Aunty Cathy that forgets,” said Marge, who, considering that at present she is only five, has excellent powers of observation. “Uncle Phil never forgets nothink.”
Shrill cheers greeted the idle, rich young fellow. Blow, blow thy whistle, Butler. Let us have another taxi up at once. Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara in taxi the first with Uncle Phil; Nannas Helen and Lucy with Dick and the Babe in taxi the second.
“Must be at Drury Lane,” said Uncle Phil to Messieurs les Chauffeurs, “before the risin’ of the curtain at one-thirty.”
Those grim evil-doers nodded darkly, and away they tootle-tootled round the corner into the Buckingham Palace Road. One fourteen, said the gold hunting repeater. Bar accidents, we shall do it on our heads.
“Oh, Uncle Phil,” said Marge, “we’ve forgotten Daddy.”
“Comin’ on from the city,” said Uncle Phil.
