The Grinder Papers — page 202: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

aon THE GRINDER PAPERS. 197 I never was determined, firm, self-asserting—whatever. you please to call it. I can’t say, ‘‘Miss Grinder, you must go home.” Amanda daresn’t. Whenever I go out I have Miss Grinder on my arm. — She sings off my hymn-book in church. People have said to Amanda, ‘‘I hear your. pa is about to give you a step-ma. ” I can’t withstand the tide of public opinion. I can’t, as a gentleman—if Miss Grinder says, ‘‘ Mr. Floger, will you have me?’-—say ‘‘No.” I must fly before she does it. You smile with scorn. Pity me! I shall leave to-night, by stealth, like a burglar. I’m going to Boston. Tibbets has employed me to do some collecting. I want you to go down and shut up the office. The rent is paid a month in advance. Perhaps Miss Grinder may go in a-month, and I may return. Watch the house and write me on the instant when that event occurs. I can’t save myself; Amanda can’t save me. Brave as you are, you couldn’t, my dear brother Thomas. Already she has given away silverware and things to a person calling himself a confidential assistant; sold my winter overcoat to a Jew, who gave her two pink vases for it; scratched the lights out of the eyes of a portrait with a table-knife, under the impression they were spatters of whitewash; kindled the fire with a very rare old edition of Shakespeare ; given a good girl—as girls go—warning without permission, and made mea red flannel dressing-gown, which she will make me wear every evening. A week ago she cooked a detestable mess for dinner, and on tasting it I involuntarily uttered an exclamation of disgust, Eomichboo cS m