United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Hilda can't be in a position to give a clear account of what happened, considering that she was half strangled by Lalage's belt at the time." "It was at the curate's class that the belt incident occurred," said the Canon, "just after they had been throwing paper wads." "So it was. All the same I don't think Hilda would be much use as a witness.
"I don't suppose she'd marry you if you did ask her," said Miss Pettigrew. "I am sure she wouldn't, so we needn't go on talking about that. Won't you let me ring and get you a cup of tea? They make quite good tea in this hotel!" "It's too early for tea, and I want to discuss this business of Lalage's seriously. The position has become quite impossible."
Miss Pettigrew, who is greatly interested, and I think on the whole sympathetic with Lalage, writes that eighteen bishops have already begun actions for libel, and that three more are expected to do so as soon as they recover from fits of nervous prostration brought on by Lalage's attacks on them.
He seemed to hear Lalage's cry on that most ghastly day of his life: "I did it all for you, Jimmy. I did it all for you." And so, in the end, he compromised with his conscience, and wrote her a briefer letter than usual.
I had a postcard from him to-day with a picture of the town hall at Wick on the back of it. He wrote nothing except the words, 'Virtute mea me unvolvo. I have Latin enough to guess that this is it a quotation from his favourite Horace? is a description of his own attitude toward Lalage's performance.
I had succeeded in implicating another culprit. Not more than half the blame was now Lalage's. "The sine qua nons," the letter went on, "are marked with red crosses, the desiderata in black." "I'm glad," I said, "that she got one plural right. By the way, I wonder what the plural of that phrase really is. It can't be sines qua non, and yet sine quibus sounds pedantic."
He said that I had originally brought her to Ballygore and he left it to be understood that I was an ardent member of the Association for the Suppression of Public Lying. Unfortunately nobody believed him. Lalage's crusade had produced an extraordinary effect. Nobody any longer believed anything, not even the advertisements.
I was rendered acutely uncomfortable by an editorial note which followed the last jibe at the last bishop: "The next number of the Anti-Tommy-Rot Gazette will deal with politicians and may be expected to be lively. Subscribe at once. Ed." I was so profoundy distrustful of my own judgment in delicate matters that I determined to find out if I could what Dodds thought of Lalage's opinions.
"I couldn't help knowing what was in your mind that day in Dublin when I spoke to you about Lalage's Jun. Soph. Ord." I could see that the Archdeacon was uncomfortable. He had certainly entertained suspicions when we parted in St. Stephen's Green, though he might now pretend to have forgotten them. "You thought so then," I went on, "though it was quite early in the day." "Not at all.
As a rule, Joseph bowed to the storm, but on this occasion he, too, had lost his temper, and then, suddenly Ida had understood, or had thought she understood. Joseph knew Lalage's address. Jealousy redoubled Ida's bitterness, and she went to the flat more than ever determined to hunt its occupant out into the streets. A woman as good as herself had a perfect right to be merciless.
Word Of The Day