Augustus Carp, Esq by Henry Bashford

Author:Henry Bashford [Bashford, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: scruss.com
Published: 2010-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter XII

Breakfast finds us calm but grave. My mother is allowed to accompany us to church. My father's clothing and general demeanour. Remark of Simeon Whey on my father's hat. First impression of the new lectern. Unmistakable evidences of guilt. The vicar's feeble apologia. A devilish device and its disastrous results. I race with Corkran for half-a-crown. My poor father is three times dropped.

Impeccable in logic, as I have already said, succinct in argument, and perfect in phrasing, it is with the profoundest regret that I have been obliged to omit from these pages the actual words of my father's denunciation; and I should like to make it quite clear that for the inevitable disappointment my publishers alone must bear the blame. Bitterly as I have protested, however, they have replied to every argument with sordid references to the cost of production, and this volume has in consequence been rushed through the press deprived of my poor father's terrible indictment.* Nor is this the less deplorable because at the last moment my father himself was prohibited from uttering it, owing to an intervention of Providence as little to have been expected as it has always appeared to me inexplicable. Indeed, had we foreseen it, I doubt if either my father or myself would have been able to retain his sanity, and we should certainly not have met, as we did the next morning, in a comparatively cheerful frame of mind.

Yet this was the case, and although, as each of us remarked, the expression of the other was unwontedly grave, it was a relief to us both to learn that neither of us had spent a bad, or even indifferent, night. Considering the circumstances, indeed, we had slept remarkably well, and in view of the tremendous task that now certainly awaited us, each of us was scrupulous to fortify his person with as large and nourishing a meal as possible. As we sang the morning hymn, too, I was glad to perceive that my father's voice was in exceptional condition, while the sunshine and soft air augured well for a particularly large congregation.

‘The more, the better,’ said my father, and he even went so far as to permit the attendance of my mother, thereby excusing her from her usual task of preparing our midday meal or dinner.

‘We’ll have something cold,’ he said, ‘middle day, and she shall give us a good hot meal after evening service.’

With myself on his right, then, and my mother on his left, we left the house at 10.45, and I have never, I think, seen my father so meticulously dressed as on this stern but necessary occasion. Wearing his longest frock-coat, a double-breasted gentian waistcoat, faultlessly creased trousers, and the glossiest of brown boots, his collar was encircled with a cream-coloured velvet tie, held in position by a single Cape garnet. By a happy circumstance, too, his bowler hat had only been purchased the week before; and indeed, as Simeon whispered to

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