His Own Father (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: aS CHAPTER III. IMPOTENCE. " THREE cheers! " cried Mrs. Perkins, with boisterous cordiality. " I was just saying to my girls, ' Now, you may depend upon it, the Hamiltons will turn up, this morning,' and here you are, sure enough! And how are you both ? " Mrs. Hamilton suffered her hand to be gripped and murmured, " How do you do ?" resignedly. It is difficult to say why we all find it so offensive to be described as " the So-and-Sos " to our faces, considering that we invariably speak of our acquaintances in that way behind their backs; but poor old Perkins would have been offensive in any case?as offensive as she was, apparently, unavoidable. " You'll have to fall into line," the good woman went on, quite unconscious of having given umbrage, "with all these thousands of water-drinkers; weshould never get to the springs at all if we didn't form a cue and wait our turn." Three parallel queues of the patient Curgdste were advancing, step by step, towards the Kreuzbrunn that crisp, sunny morning, while the band in the neighbouring kiosk played operatic selections to cheer them on their way. At Marienbad, as at all such places, the day begins early, and although the clocks had but just struck seven, everybody was out and about. Natives of the country, for the most part? some yellow-complexioned, some preternaturally obese?with a sprinkling of Russians, Britons and other aliens discernible here and there in the throng; upon the whole not a particularly attractive crowd; but then who or what can look attractive at seven o'clock in the morning ? Well, the blue hills, perhaps, and the dark pine woods and the bright, white houses in the foreground. Mrs. Hamilton's eyes sought these, while her ears gave scant attention to the volubility of her fat friend, at whose heels she...