Mr. Marrapit indicated the smouldering wedge.
George bent forward. “Tobacco,” he
announced.
“My nose informed me. My eyes affirm.
Yours?”
“I am afraid so.”
“My simple rule. In the vegetable garden
you may smoke; here you may not. Is it so hard
to observe?”
“I quite forgot myself.”
Mr. Marrapit cried: “Adjust that impression.
You forgot me. Consistently you forget me.
My desires, my interests are nothing to you.”
“It’s a rotten thing to make a fuss about.”
“That is why I make a fuss. It is
a rotten thing. A disgusting and a noisome thing.
Bury it.”
Into a bed of soft mould George struck a sullen heel;
kicked the tobacco towards the pit. Mr. Marrapit
chanted over the obsequies: “I provide
you with the enormous expanse of my vegetable garden
in which to smoke. Yet upon my little acre you
intrude. I am Naboth.”
Ahab straightened his back; sighed heavily. Naboth
started against the prick of a sudden recollection:
“I had forgotten. Your examination?”
George half turned away. The bitterest moment
of a sad day was come. He growled:
“Pipped.”
“Pipped?”
“Pilled.”
“Pilled?”
“Spun.”
“Spun?"
“Three months.”
Mr. Marrapit put his hands to his head: “I
shall go mad. My brain reels beneath these conundrums.
I implore English.”
The confession of defeat is a thousandfold more bitter
when made to unkind ears. George paled a little;
spoke very clearly: “I failed. I was
referred for three months.”
“I am Job,” groaned Mr. Marrapit.
“I expected this. The strain is unendurable.
It is unnatural. The next chance shall be your
last. What is the fee for re-examination?”
“Five guineas.”
“My God!” said Mr. Marrapit.
He tottered away up the path.
Excursions In Melancholy.
Gloom brooded over Herons’ Holt that evening.
Gloom hung thickly about the rooms: blanketed
conversation; veiled eyes that might have sparkled;
choked appetites.
Nevertheless this was an atmosphere in which one member
of the household felt most comfortable.
Margaret, Mr. Marrapit’s only child, was nineteen;
of sallow complexion, petite, pretty; with large brown
eyes in which sat always a constant quest—an
entreaty, a wistful yearning.
Hers was a clinging nature, readily responsive to
the attraction of any stouter mind. Enthusiasm
was in this girl, but it lay well-like—
not as a spring. To stir it the influence of another
was wanted; of itself, spontaneous, it could not leap.
Aroused, there was no rush and surge of emotion—it
welled, rose deeply; thickly, without ripple; crestless,
flinging no intoxicating spume. Waves rush triumphant,
hurtling forward the stick they support: the pool
swells, leaving the stick quiescent, floating.
