Looked
through a score of magazines, I dare say, when he found we didn't
notice him much; turned the leaves too fast to see anything, though;
made noises and coughed--that sort of thing. Fine old girl. Daughter,
hyphen chap's wife, tried to talk, too, some rot about the season
being well on here, and was there a good deal of society in London,
and would I be free for dinner on the ninth?
"Silly chatter! old girl talked sense: cattle, mines, timber, blind
factory, two-year olds, that kind of thing. Shall see her often. Not
the hyphen chap, though; too much like one of those Bond Street
milliner-chap managers."
Vague misgivings here beset me as to the value of the Honourable
George to the North Side set. Nor could I feel at all reassured on the
following day when Mrs. Effie held an afternoon reception in his
honour. That he should be unaware of the event's importance was to be
expected, for as yet I had been unable to get him to take the Red Gap
social crisis seriously. At the hour when he should have been dressed
and ready I found him playing at cribbage with Cousin Egbert in the
latter's apartment, and to my dismay he insisted upon finishing the
rubber although guests were already arriving.
Even when the game was done he flatly refused to dress suitably,
declaring that his lounge-suit should be entirely acceptable to these
rough frontier people, and he consented to go down at all only on
condition that Cousin Egbert would accompany him.
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