MR WRAY'S CASH BOX by Wilkie Collins

Author:Wilkie Collins [Collins, Wilkie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788027222568
Publisher: Musaicum Books
Published: 2017-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

VI

Table of Contents

During the whole remainder of Annie’s birthday, Mr Wray sat at home, anxiously expecting the promised communication from the mysterious new pupil whose elocution wanted so much setting to rights. Though he never came, and never wrote, old Reuben still persisted in expecting him forthwith; and still waited for him as patiently the next morning, as he had waited the day before.

Annie sat in the room with her grandfather, occupied in making lace. She had learnt this art, so as to render herself, if possible, of some little use in contributing to the general support; and, sometimes, her manufacture actually poured a few extra shillings into the scantily filled family coffer. Her lace was not at all the sort of thing that your fine people would care to look at twice — it was just simple and pretty, like herself; and only sold (when it did sell, and that alas! was not often!) among ladies whose purses were very little better furnished than her own.

‘Julius Caesar’ was downstairs, in the back kitchen, making the all-important box — or, as the landlady irritably phrased it, ‘making a mess about the house’. She was not partial to sawdust and shavings, and almost lost her temper when the glue pot invaded the kitchen fire. But work away, honest carpenter! work away, and never mind her! Get the mask of Shakespeare out of the old box, and into the new, before night comes; and you will have done the best day’s work you ever completed in your life!

Annie and her grandfather had a great deal of talk about the Shakespeare cast, while they were sitting together in the drawing-room. If I were to report all old Reuben’s rhapsodies and quotations during that period, I might fill the whole remaining space accorded to me in this little book. It was only once that the conversation varied at all. Annie just asked, by way of changing the subject a little, how a plaster cast was taken from the mould; and Mr Wray instantly went off at a tangent, in the midst of a new quotation, to tell her. He was still describing, for the second time, how the plaster and water were to be mixed, how the mixture was to be left to ‘set’, and how the mould was to be pulled off it, when the landlady, looking very hot and important, bustled into the room, exclaiming: —

‘Mr Wray, sir! Mr Wray! Here’s Squire Colebatch, of Cropley Court, coming upstairs to see you!’ She then added, in a whisper: ‘He’s very hot-tempered and odd, sir, but the best gentleman in the world — ’

‘That will do, ma’am! that will do!’ interrupted a hearty voice, outside the door. ‘I can introduce myself; an old playwriter and an old play-actor don’t want much introduction, I fancy! How are you, Mr Wray? I’ve come to make your acquaintance: how do you do, sir!’

Before the Squire came in, Mr Wray’s first idea was that the young gentleman pupil had arrived at last — but when the Squire appeared, he discovered that he was mistaken.

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