FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146  
147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   >>   >|  
never." "You mean to say that your grandmother goes about in long clothes with her hair down in the central districts?" cried Madame in blank amazement. "She has never put her hair up," answered the Prophet, with almost obstinate determination. "Oh, well--if she prefers! But I wonder what the police are about!" retorted Madame. "And now the rashes?" "There are none." But at this Madame's temper--already somewhat upset by her prolonged communion with the mighty dead--showed symptoms of giving way altogether. "Rubbish, Mr. Vivian!" she said, clicking loudly and passing with an almost upheaving jerk to her upper register! "I'm a mother and was once a child. Rubbish! I must insist upon knowing the number of the rashes." "I assure you there are none." "D'you wish me to believe that the old lady has gone about all her life in the Berkeley Square in long clothes and her hair down, with her lips to the bottle and never had a rash? Do you wish me to believe that, Mr. Vivian?" "Yes, sir, do you wish Madame, a lady of deep education, sir, to believe that?" cried Mr. Sagittarius. "I can only adhere to what I have said," answered the Prophet. "My grandmother has never been removed from the bottle, has never worn a short coat, has never put her hair up and has never had an epidemic in Berkeley Square." "Then all I can say is that she's an unnatural old lady," cried Madame, with obvious temper, tossing her head and kicking out the kid boots, as if seized with the sudden desire to use them upon a human football. "And there's not many like her." "There is no one like her, no one at all," said the Prophet with fervour. "So I should suppose," cried Madame, forgetting the other questions as to the day of marriage, etc., in the vexation of the moment. "She must certainly be the bird of whom Phoenix wrote that rose from ashes in the days of the classics. _Rarum avis_ indeed! Eh, Jupiter?" "Very rarum, my dear, very indeed!" responded her husband, with imitative sarcasm. "An avis indeed, not a doubt of it." "De Queechy should have known her," continued Madame. "He always loved everything out of the common. Well, and now for the prophecy. What is all this, Mr. Vivian?" "The result of last night's observation," said the Prophet. "Do you call that a cycloidal curve?" asked Madame, with a contralto laugh that shook the library. "Look, Jupiter!" Mr. Sagittarius glanced over his wife's heaving shoulder.
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146  
147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Madame
 

Prophet

 

Vivian

 
Rubbish
 

Jupiter

 

Berkeley

 

Square

 

bottle

 

Sagittarius

 

rashes


answered

 
grandmother
 

clothes

 
temper
 
imitative
 

classics

 

responded

 

husband

 

forgetting

 

questions


suppose

 

fervour

 

marriage

 

sarcasm

 

moment

 
vexation
 

Phoenix

 

contralto

 

cycloidal

 

observation


library

 

heaving

 
shoulder
 

glanced

 

result

 

continued

 

Queechy

 

prophecy

 

common

 

communion


giving
 
prefers
 

determination

 

symptoms

 

obstinate

 
altogether
 

police

 
register
 
upheaving
 

loudly