FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83  
84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   >>   >|  
of the guests, and says he--" "Oh dear, I am so hungry." This was not from the comedy, but from one of the boys. "And so am I," cried a girl. "That is an absurd remark, Lysimachus," said Triplet with a suspicious calmness. "How can a boy be hungry three hours after breakfast?" "But, father, there was no breakfast for breakfast." "Now I ask you, Mrs. Triplet," appealed the author, "how I am to write comic scenes if you let Lysimachus and Roxalana here put the heavy business in every five minutes?" "Forgive them; the poor things are hungry." "Then let them be hungry in another room," said the irritated scribe. "They shan't cling round my pen, and paralyze it, just when it is going to make all our fortunes; but you women," snapped Triplet the Just, "have no consideration for people's feelings. Send them all to bed; every man Jack of them!" Finding the conversation taking this turn, the brats raised a unanimous howl. Triplet darted a fierce glance at them. "Hungry, hungry," cried he; "is that a proper expression to use before a father who is sitting down here, all gayety" (scratching wildly with his pen) "and hilarity" (scratch) "to write a com--com--" he choked a moment; then in a very different voice, all sadness and tenderness, he said: "Where's the youngest--where's Lucy? As if I didn't know you are hungry." Lucy came to him directly. He took her on his knee, pressed her gently to his side, and wrote silently. The others were still. "Father," said Lucy, aged five, the germ of a woman, "I am not very hungry." "And I am not hungry at all," said bluff Lysimachus, taking his sister's cue; then going upon his own tact he added, "I had a great piece of bread and butter yesterday!" "Wife, they will drive me mad!" and he dashed at the paper. The second boy explained to his mother, _sotto voce:_ "Mother, he _made_ us hungry out of his book." "It is a beautiful book," said Lucy. "Is it a cookery book?" Triplet roared: "Do you hear that?" inquired he, all trace of ill-humor gone. "Wife," he resumed, after a gallant scribble, "I took that sermon I wrote." "And beautiful it was, James. I'm sure it quite cheered me up with thinking that we shall all be dead before so very long." "Well, the reverend gentleman would not have it. He said it was too hard upon sin. 'You run at the Devil like a mad bull,' said he. 'Sell it in Lambeth, sir; here calmness and decency are before everything,' says h
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83  
84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

hungry

 

Triplet

 

breakfast

 
Lysimachus
 
beautiful
 

taking

 
calmness
 

father

 

sister

 

reverend


decency
 

butter

 

yesterday

 

Father

 

pressed

 
directly
 

gently

 

gentleman

 

silently

 
roared

inquired

 
cookery
 

thinking

 

gallant

 

cheered

 

resumed

 

sermon

 
dashed
 

explained

 

mother


Lambeth

 

Mother

 

scribble

 

proper

 

minutes

 

business

 

Forgive

 

things

 

scenes

 

Roxalana


paralyze

 

irritated

 

scribe

 

author

 

appealed

 

comedy

 
guests
 

absurd

 

remark

 

suspicious