The Argosy — page 187: what you’re looking at

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

170 Winifred Power. ‘Well, what are you all about? Is tea not ready? Ah! Good- evening, Miss Winifred!” said Mr. Dallas, rubbing his hands with the bearing of a man who has achieved a task and is pleased with it. ‘‘We are waiting for poor Dick,” said Mrs. Dallas. ‘Wait for no one. Punctuality is the essence of success, ‘There is no defect for which I have so profound a contempt as unpunc- tuality,” observed he, turning towards Winifred. This in the presence of a domestic calamity would have astonished Winifred, could anything in Mr. Dallas have astonished her. As it was, she only said gravely, “‘I came to condole with you about Richard.” ‘Ah, Richard! Poor lad!” Regret clouded the father’s open, handsome countenance. ‘‘ He has been infamously treated, Miss Power. Infamously. I have written out a petition. Perhaps a better plan would be to horsewhip the curator? I think I will go to Blois to do it. By Jove! I will start to-morrow,” wound up Mr. Dallas, struck with the sudden idea. ‘And your etching P?” suggested Gertrude. “The etching be hanged! it can wait,” replied her father, with serenity. ‘Here’s Richard. We were going to begin tea without you, my boy; you are five minutes late.” Richard, a dark, slender, and attractive young man, came forward and shook hands with Winifred in silence. He was looking sad and pale. “‘T am so sorry for you,” she murmured. ‘‘T am sorry for myself, but there is little help in that,” he said, glancing at her gratefully. ‘‘ I suppose I am fated to go tothe wall.” Gertrude, curled up in an arm-chair, here gave a derisive laugh. ‘We are always going to the wall, all of us. In fact, we live in an impasse,” she observed amiably. “In the absence of more effectual effort, my child, you can con- tinue to console yourself by making epigrammatic remarks,” said Mr. Dallas, not well pleased. Gertrude looked furious; she hated reproof. But in any war of words with her father, she knew that she was always beaten, though she had inherited much of his caustic wit. | ‘Where is the cosy ?” inquired of the world at large Mrs. Dallas, peering about painfully. “It was left in the drawing-room. Georgie, go and fetch it,” com- manded Gertrude of her younger sister, a lanky maiden of fifteen. “Go yourself!” retorted Georgie, who was nursing a splendid cat, the mother of Mrs. Chandos-Fane’s kitten. Enraged to activity, Gertrude sprang up and made a dart at the rebel. Georgie ducked; the cat bounded: Mrs. Dallas’s key-basket was upset, and its contents were scattered upon the flaor. She stooped to collect them, caught a corner of the table-cover, and some of the cups fell with a crash to the ground. GomicbookstGom