A Psychical Researcher,
with a note-book; he gets at the Duchess at once, and cross-examines
her about a visionary Piper who plays audible pibrochs through Castle
Blawearie, her ancestral home. Does she think the pibroch could be
taken down in a phonograph. Could the Piper be snapped in a kodak?
The Duchess does not know what a phonograph is; never heard of a
kodak. She does not like the note-book any more than _Mr. Pickwick's_
cabman liked it. She is afraid of getting into print. Then there is
the Warden of St. Jude's, a great scholar; he pricks up his ears,
not the keenest, at the word kodak, and begins to talk about a
newly-discovered _Codex_ of PODONIAN the Elder. Nobody knows what
a _Codex_ is. There is a School-board Lady, but, alas, she is next
the Warden of St. Jude's, not next the enthusiastic Clergyman, who
proses about a Club for Milliners. There is GRIGSBY, who develops an
undesirable interest in the Milliners' Club. Have they a Strangers'
Room? Do they give suppers? Are they Friendly Girls? Everyone thinks
GRIGSBY flippant and coarse; I wish I had not asked him to come. There
is a Positivist, who sneers at the Clergyman; there are a Squire and
his wife from Rutlandshire: she is next the Radical Candidate for the
Isle of Dogs. They do not seem to get on well together. GRIGSBY and
the humorist of the future are chaffing each other across the table:
nobody understands them; I don't know whether they are quarrelling
or not.
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