The Argosy — page 196: what you’re looking at

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

182 Edina. obtaining one. Nobody, the Colonel said, could get one now unless he had been specially prepared for it. He would advise Charles, he added, to embrace a civil profession; say the law. It was very easy to go to the Bar, he believed; involving only, so far as he knew, a certain num- ber of eaten dinners. All this sounded very cruel to Charles Raynor. Otherwise the Colonel was kind. He kept him for the day, and took him to dine at his club. It was late when Charles got home; thoroughly tired. Disappoint- ment, of itself, inflicts weariness. Mrs. Raynor felt terribly disheartened at the news. ‘ “ There have been so many weeks lost, you see, Charley !” “Yes,” returned Charles, gloomily. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what to be at now. Cockburn suggested the Bar. He says one may qualify for almost nothing.” “We will talk of it to-morrow, Charley,” said Mrs. Raynor. “It is past. bed-time, and I am tired. You were not thinking of sitting up later, were you, my dear?” she added, as Charles took up “‘ She Stoops to Conquer” from a side table. “Oh well—I suppose not, if you say it isso late,” he replied. “The dresses have come, ready for the rehearsal, Charley,” whis- pered Alice, as they were going upstairs. “I have put them in your room. Charlotte Earle and I have been trying on ours. I mean to.wear one of Edina’s brown holland aprons while I am supposed to be a barmaid.” . . ““T'll be shot if I know half my part,” grumbled Charley. “It was a bother, having to go out to-day 1” “You can learn it before Michaelmas.” “Of course I can. But one likes to be perfect at rehearsal. Good night.” Charles turned into his room, and shut the door. It was a good- sized apartment, one that Mrs. Raynor destined for boarders later, when the school should have increased. The first thing he saw, piled up between the bed and the wall, partly on a low chest of drawers, partly on the floor, was a confused heap of gay clothes and other articles: the theatrical paraphernalia that had been brought round from Mrs. Earle’s. Topmost of all, lay a yellow gauze dress edged with tinsel. Charles, all his interest in the coming rehearsal reviving at the sight, touched it gingerly here and there, and wondered whether it might be the state robe for one of the younger ladies, or for Tony Lumpkin’s mother. “I wish to goodness I was more perfect in my part!” cried he, nulling corners out of the other things to see what their bulk consisted of. “Suppose I give half-an-hour to it, before I get into bed.” Alfred Jay on the far side, fast asleep. The little book was still in his hand. He edged the candle on the comicbooks.com