FORE:Well, that would be a funny notion for Sir Thomas Keeling to wear slippers at dinner, she said. What a going-back to old days! I might as well wear some high-necked merino gown. But what your father says is quite true, Alice. We might really take Mr Silverdale in hand, and tell him thats the last hell see of us all, unless he takes more care of himself. I saw him coming out of the County Club to-day, looking so tired that I almost stopped my carriage and told him to go home to bed. And talking of the County Club, Thomas, doesnt your election come on soon? You must be sure to take me to have lunch in the ladies room one of these days. Lady Inverbroom told me she was lunching there to-day, and had quite a clean good sort of meal. Nothing very choice, I expect, but I dare say she doesnt care much what she eats. I shall never forget what a tough pheasant we had when we dined there. If Id been told I was eating a bit of leather, I should have believed it. Perhaps some day when Lord and Lady Inverbroom are in Bracebridge again, we might all have lunch together there.
FORE:"Yes, that is, I knew FrankI mean Mr. Bassettthat is, I knew you were all three going away, and I thought I might come down and see you start."Such a scolding as I had before church from{54} my housekeeper, he said, because I didnt eat the buttered scones she sent me up for tea. I know some one who would have polished them off, eh, John?
FORE:NIGHT SCENE NEAR FUSHIMI. NIGHT SCENE NEAR FUSHIMI.A WAYSIDE SHRINE. A WAYSIDE SHRINE.
THREE:Besides, there was Arthur Wither's story about the flapping ears and the queer conversation of the Clockwork man, his peculiar[Pg 43] jerky movements, his sudden exhibitions of uncanny efficiency contrasted with appalling lapses. Once you had grasped the idea of his mechanical origin, it was difficult to thrust the Clockwork man out of your head. He became something immensely exciting and suggestive. If Gregg's sense of humour had not been so violently tickled by the ludicrous side of the affair, he would have felt already that some great discovery was about to be revealed to the modern world. It had never occurred to him before that abnormal phenomena might be presented to human beings in the form of a sort of practical joke. Somehow, one expected this sort of thing to happen in solemn earnest and in the dead of night. But the event had taken place in broad daylight, and already there was mixed up with its queer unreality the most ridiculous tangle of purely human circumstance.
THREE:
