The Fancy by Dickens Monica

Author:Dickens, Monica [Dickens, Monica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

*

It was to be quite a little show. That was how Edward and Dick Bennett wanted it : just a few select classes for members of the Collis Park Rabbit Club only. If outsiders wanted to enter, then they must join the Club ; that was a ruse to get the new members they so badly needed. Three months after its foundation, the Club had a nice little kernel of members, but although some of these were experienced fanciers with interesting stock, others were no more than one-rabbit men or schoolboys with a pair of Utilities in a converted soap box.

However, they all paid their subscription, drew their rations of bran and dutifully sold half their young stock for flesh. The Club was also a market for their Breeding stock, which they bartered through the medium of Edward or E. Dexter Bell, who although he insisted that he was too busy to be Secretary, was not above dabbling in the more attractive functions of that office. Edward had to deal with all the correspondence, longhand, because the clacking of his old-fashioned typewriter set Connie’s nerves on edge, but Mr. Bell liked to feel that he was the master-mind behind it. Edward could hardly object to his supervision, as he paid, among other things, for the notepaper and stamps.

Dick Bennett sometimes annoyed Edward by remarking that if it had not been for Mr. Bell’s solid backing he didn’t know where they would have been.

“I reckon it was a rare stroke Where on earth have you been?pa by nowof luck getting in with him,” he would say, breathing heavily with a hero-worship which Edward could not share. Dick was all for making Mr. Bell President, but so far Edward had managed to avoid this. The three of them called themselves Joint Unofficial Presidents, or in Mr. Bell’s moments of sticky bonhomie in the Marquis of Granby, The Three Musketeers.

It had become an established thing for them to meet roughly once a week, either at Edward’s house, or at Dick Bennett’s (not often because the children were so noisy), or, in Mr. Bell’s sanctum on the first floor of “Uanmee”. They would hold a kind of informal board meeting, going over the correspondence and the pamphlets from Ministries, drafting advertisements, making plans or simply talking shop. Often they would talk far into the night, until the room was stale with tobacco smoke and Connie or fat, sloppy Mrs. Bennett or stylish Miss Bell had long since gone to bed.

“Quite a little show,” Edward was repeating thoughtfully one evening. “Not a big do : more like a get-acquainted affair for our members. Being the first, we’ve got to set the pace for the Club’s future, don’t forget. We’re not catering for the big breeders and the high fliers. Quite a little show, that’s how I picture it. Friendly. We could get St. Mark’s Hall ; they throw in flags there for nothing.”

“Hm, “said Dick Bennett and Mr. Bell said : “St. Mark’s Hall! My dear good chap, we want to aim a bit higher than that.

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