United States or Burundi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
While stationed at Liverpool, I was called away to supply the place of the superintendent preacher in the Chester circuit for a few weeks, who had died very suddenly, under very peculiar circumstances. His name was Dunkerley. I was told by persons likely to know the truth, that he was a very drunken man.
For Bonover had only a Durham degree, and Dunkerley, having none, inclined to be particular. Therewith Dunkerley lapsed into a sympathetic and busy rustling over his own pile of exercises. It was not until the heap had been reduced to a book or so that he spoke again an elaborate point. "Male and female created He them," said Dunkerley, ticking his way down the page.
Several smoked and others held pipes which they had discontinued smoking but there was nothing to drink, except coffee, because that was the extent of their means. Dunkerley, an assistant master in a suburban school, and Lewisham's former colleague at Whortley, attended these assemblies through the introduction of Lewisham.
Perhaps poor Dunkerley thought it would hardly look right for him to be accommodated at a public-house with a bed, and yet take nothing to drink; so he got some gin. The relish for the gin must have returned upon him with great power when he began to taste it, for he drank very freely. He drank so much, that the publican himself began to feel alarmed for him.
He had been a "nix" eight years. "Of course that Kensington thing may come off," said Dunkerley, "but it's best not to wait. I tell you frankly the chances are against you." The "Kensington thing" was an application for admission to the Normal School of Science at South Kensington, which Lewisham had made in a sanguine moment.
Parkson was one of those exponents of virtue for whom the discussion of sexual matters has an irresistible attraction. The meeting had left him eloquent. He had argued with Dunkerley to the verge of indelicacy, and now he poured out a vast and increasingly confidential flow of talk upon Lewisham. Lewisham was distraught. He walked as fast as he could. His sole object was to get rid of Parkson.
"Fee for booking," said the assistant; "half a crown, postage in advance half a crown." But Lewisham remembered certain advice Dunkerley had given him in the old Whortley days. He hesitated. "No," he said. "I don't pay that. If you get me anything there's the commission if you don't " "We lose," supplied the assistant. "And you ought to," said Lewisham. "It's a fair game."
Frobisher sniffed quite threateningly at him when she passed him in the street. She did it so suddenly she made him jump. This general disapproval inclined him at times to depression, but in certain moods he found it exhilarating, and several times he professed himself to Dunkerley not a little of a blade. In others, he told himself he bore it for her sake. Anyhow he had to bear it.
Dunkerley had been in the habit of applying for several years, always in vain, and Lewisham had seen no harm in following his example. But then Dunkerley had no green-grey certificates. So Lewisham spent all that "duty" left him of the next day composing a letter to copy out and send the several scholastic agencies.
All the Friends wore red ties except Bletherley, who wore an orange one to show that he was aware of Art, and Dunkerley, who wore a black one with blue specks, because assistant masters in small private schools have to keep up appearances. And their simple procedure was that each talked as much as the others would suffer.
Word Of The Day