Fancy a club of that sort! But he took me to
his own house for a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and there it wasn't
so rotten. Rather a mother-in-law I think, she is--bally old booming
grenadier--topping sort--no end of fun. We palled up immensely and I
quite forgot the Jackson chap till it was time for him to drive me
back to these diggings. Rather sulky he was, I fancy; uppish sort.
Told him the old one was quite like old Caroline, dowager duchess of
Clewe, but couldn't tell if it pleased him. Seemed to like it and
seemed not to: rather uncertain.
"Asked him why the people of the settlement pronounced his name
'Belknap Hyphen Jackson,' and that seemed to make him snarky again. I
mean to say names with hyphen marks in 'em--I'd never heard the hyphen
pronounced before, but everything is so strange. He said only the
lowest classes did it as a form of coarse wit, and that he was wasting
himself here. Wouldn't stay another day if it were not for family
reasons. Queer sort of wheeze to say 'hyphen' in a chap's name as if
it were a word, when it wasn't at all. The old girl, though--bellower
she is--perfectly top-hole; familiar with cattle--all that sort of
thing. Sent away the chap's sherry and had 'em bring whiskey and soda.
The hyphen chap fidgeted a good bit--nervous sort, I take it.
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