 this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarky. The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope. Who and what is Mr. Brope? demanded the aunt of Clovis suddenly. Mrs. Riversidge, who had been snipping off the heads of defunct roses and thinking of nothing in particular, sprang hurriedly to mental attention. She was one of those old-fashioned hostesses who consider that one ought to know something about one's guests and that something ought to be to their credit. I believe he comes from Layton Buzzard. She observed by way of preliminary explanation. In these days of rapid and convenient travel, said Clovis, who was dispersing a colony of green fly with visitations of cigarette smoke, to come from Layton Buzzard does not necessarily denote any great strength of character. It might only mean mere restlessness Now if he had left it under a cloud, or as a protest against the incurable and heartless frivolity of its inhabitants, that would tell us something about the man and his mission in life. What does he do? pursued Mrs. Troyle magisterially. He edits the cathedral monthly, said her hostess, and he's enormously learned about memorial brasses and transepts, and the influence of Byzantine worship on modern liturgy, and all those sort of things. Perhaps he is just a little bit heavy and immersed in one range of subjects, but it takes all sorts to make a good house-party, you know. You don't find him too dull, do you? With dullness I could overlook, said the aunt of Clovis. What I cannot forgive is his making love to my maid. My dear Mrs. Troyle, gasped the hostess, what an extraordinary idea! I assure you Mr. Brope would not dream of doing such a thing. His dreams are a matter of indifference to me. For all I care his slumbers may be one long indiscretion of unsuitable erotic advances in which the entire servants-hall may be involved. But in his waking hours he shall not make love to my maid. It's no use arguing about it. I'm firm on the point. But you must be mistaken, persisted Mrs. Riversidge. Mr. Brope would be the last person to do such a thing. He is the first person to do such a thing, as far as my information goes. And if I have any voice in the matter he shall certainly be the last. Of course I am not referring to respectably intentioned lovers. I simply cannot think that a man who writes so charmingly and informingly about transepts and Byzantine influences would behave in such an unprincipled manner, said Mrs. Riversidge. What evidence have you that he's doing anything of the sort? I don't want to doubt your word, of course, but we mustn't be too ready to condemn him unheard, must we? Whether we condemn him or not he has certainly not been unheard. He has the room next to my dressing-room, and on two occasions when I daresay he thought I was absent, I have plainly heard him announcing through the wall. I love you, Flory. Those partition walls upstairs are very thin. One can almost hear a watch ticking in the next room. Is your maid called Florence? Her name is Florender. What an extraordinary name to give a maid. I did not give it to her. She arrived in my service already christened. What I mean is, said Mrs. Riversidge, that when I get maids with unsuitable names I call them Jane. They soon get used to it. An excellent plan, said the aunt of Clovis Codely. Unfortunately I have got used to being called Jane myself. It happens to be my name. She cut short, Mrs. Riversidge's flood of apologies, by abruptly remarking, the question is not whether I'm to call my maid Florender, but whether Mr. Brope is to be permitted to call her Flory. I am strongly of opinion that he shall not. He may have been repeating the words of some song, said Mrs. Riversidge, hopefully. There are lots of those sorts of silly refrains with girls' names, she continued, turning to Clovis as a possible authority on the subject. You mustn't call me Mary. I shouldn't think of doing so, Clovis assured her. In the first place I have always understood that your name was Henrietta, and then I hardly know you well enough to take such a liberty. I mean there's a song with that refrain, hurriedly explained Mrs. Riversidge, and there's Roder of Roder kept a pagoda, and Maisie is a daisy, and heaps of others. Certainly it doesn't sound like Mr. Brope to be singing such songs, but I think we ought to give him the benefit of the doubt. I had already done so, said Mrs. Trial, until further evidence came my way. She shut her lips with the resolute finality of one who enjoys the blessed certainty of being implored to open them again. Further evidence, exclaimed her hostess, do tell me. As I was coming upstairs after breakfast, Mr. Brope was just passing my room. In the most natural way in the world a piece of paper dropped out of a packet that he held in his hand and fluttered to the ground just at my door. I was going to call out to him, you've dropped something, and then for some reason I held back and didn't show myself till he was safely in his room. You see, it occurred to me that I was very seldom in my room just at that hour, and that Florender was almost always there tidying up things about that time. So I picked up that innocent-looking piece of paper. Mrs. Trial paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has detected an asp lurking in an apple-sharlot. Mrs. Riversidge snipped vigorously at the nearest Rosebush, incidentally decapitating a Viscountess Folkstone that was just coming into bloom. "'What was on the paper?' she asked. "'Just the words in pencil. I love you, Florey.' And then underneath crossed out with a faint line, but perfectly plain to read, "'Meet me in the garden by the view. There is a yew-tree at the bottom of the garden,' admitted Mrs. Riversidge. At any rate he appears to be truthful,' commented Clovis, "'to think that a scandal of this sort should be going on under my roof,' said Mrs. Riversidge indignantly. I wonder why it is that scandal seems so much worse under a roof,' observed Clovis. I've always regarded it as a proof of the superior delicacy of the cat tribe that it conducts most of its scandals above the slates. Now I come to think of it,' resumed Mrs. Riversidge. There are things about Mr. Broke that I've never been able to account for. His income, for instance. He only gets two hundred a year as editor of the Cathedral monthly, and I know that his people are quite poor, and he hasn't any private means. Yet he manages to afford a flat somewhere in Westminster, and he goes abroad to Bruges and those sorts of places every year, and always dresses well, and gives quite nice luncheon parties in the season. You can't do all that on two hundred a year, can you? Does he write for any other papers?' queried Mrs. Troyle. No, you see, he specializes so entirely on liturgy and ecclesiastical architecture that his field is rather restricted. He once tried the sporting and dramatic with an article on church edifices in famous fox-hunting centres, but it wasn't considered of sufficient general interest to be accepted. No, I don't see how he can support himself in his present style merely by what he writes. Perhaps he sells spurious transepts to American enthusiasts, suggested Clevis. How could you sell a transept? said Mrs. Riversage. Such a thing would be impossible. Whatever he may do to eke out his income, interrupted Mrs. Troyle, he is certainly not going to fill in his leisure moments by making love to my maid. Of course not, agreed her hostess. That must be put a stop to at once. But I don't quite know what we ought to do. You might put a barbed wire entanglement round the U-tree as a precautionary measure, said Clevis. I don't think that the disagreeable situation that has arisen is improved by flippancy, said Mrs. Riversage. A good maid is a treasure. I am sure I don't know what I should do without Florenda, admitted Mrs. Troyle. She understands my hair. I've long ago given up trying to do anything with it myself. I regard one's hair as I regard husband's, as long as one is seen together in public one's private divergences don't matter. Surely that was the luncheon gong. Mrs. Brope and Clevis had the smoking-room to themselves after lunch. The former seemed restless and preoccupied. The latter quietly observant. What is the lorry? asked Septimus suddenly. I don't mean the thing on wheels. Of course I know what that is. But isn't there a bird with a name like that, the larger form of a lorry-keet? I fancy it's a lorry with one R, said Clevis lazily, in which case it's no good to you. Septimus Brope stared in some astonishment. How do you mean no good to me? he asked with more than a trace of uneasiness in his voice. Won't rhyme with Florey? explained Clevis briefly. Septimus sat upright in his chair with unmistakable alarm on his face. How did you find out? I mean how did you know I was trying to get a rhyme to Florey? he asked sharply. I didn't know, said Clevis. I only guessed. When you wanted to turn the prosaic lorry of commerce into a feathered poem flitting through the verger of a tropical forest, I knew you must be working up a sonnet. And Florey was the only female name that suggested itself as rhyming with lorry. Septimus still looked uneasy. I believe you know more, he said. Clevis laughed quietly but said nothing. How much do you know? Septimus asked desperately. The yew-tree in the garden, said Clevis. There! I felt certain I dropped it somewhere, but you must have guessed something before. Look here, you have surprised my secret. You won't give me away, will you? It is nothing to be ashamed of, but it wouldn't do for the editor of the cathedral monthly to go in openly for that sort of thing, would it? Well, I suppose not, admitted Clevis. You see, continued Septimus, I get quite a decent lot of money out of it. I could never live in the style I do on what I get as editor of the cathedral monthly. Clevis was even more startled than Septimus had been earlier in the conversation, but he was better skilled in repressing surprise. Do you mean to say you get money out of Florey? he asked. Not out of Florey as yet, said Septimus. In fact, I don't mind saying that I'm having a good deal of trouble over Florey, but there are lots of others. Clevis's cigarette went out. This is very interesting, he said slowly, and then with Septimus Brope's next words, illumination dawned on him. There are heaps of others. For instance, Cora, with the lips of Coral, you and I will never quarrel. That was one of my earliest successes, and it still brings me in royalties. And then there is Esmeralda, when I first beheld her, and Fair Teresa, how I love to please her. Both of those have been fairly popular. And there is one rather dreadful one, continued Septimus, flushing deep Carmine, which has brought me in more money than any of the others. Lively little Lucy with her naughty nary trucee. Of course, I loathe the whole lot of them. In fact, I'm rapidly becoming something of a woman-hater under their influence, but I can't afford to disregard the financial aspect of the matter. And at the same time you can understand that my position as an authority on ecclesiastical architecture and liturgical subjects would be weakened if not altogether ruined, if it once got about that I was the author of Cora with the lips of Coral, and all the rest of them. Clovis had recovered sufficiently to ask in a sympathetic, if rather unsteady voice, what was the special trouble with Flory? I can't get her into lyric shape try as I will, said Septimus mournfully. You see, one has to work in a lot of sentimental, sugary complement with a catchy rhyme, and a certain amount of personal biography or prophecy. They've all of them got to have a long string of past successes recorded about them, or else you've got to foretell blissful things about them and yourself in the future. For instance, there is dainty little girly Mavis. She is such a rarer Avis. All the money I can save is all to be for Mavis' mine. It goes to a sickening Namby-Pamby waltz tune, and for months nothing else was sung and hummed in Blackpool and other popular centres. This time Clovis' self-control broke down badly. Please excuse me, he gurgled, but I can't help it when I remember the awful solemnity of that article of yours that you so kindly read us last night on the Coptic Church in its relation to early Christian worship. Septimus groaned. You see how it would be, he said, as soon as people knew me to be the author of that miserable sentimental twaddle, all respect for the serious labours of my life would be gone. I dare say I know more about memorial brasses than any one living. In fact, I hope one day to publish a monograph on the subject. But I should be pointed out everywhere as the man whose ditties were in the mouths of nigger-minstrels along the entire coastline of our island home. Can you wonder that I positively hate flurry all the time that I'm trying to grind out sugar-coated rhapsodies about her? Why not give free play to your emotions and be brutally abusive? An uncomplimentary refrain would have an instant success as a novelty if you were sufficiently outspoken. I've never thought of that, said Septimus, and I'm afraid I couldn't break away from the habit of full sum adulation and suddenly change my style. You needn't change your style in the least, said Plovis. Merely reverse the sentiment and keep to the inane phraseology of the thing. If you'll do the body of the song, I'll knock off the refrain, which is the thing that principally matters, I believe. I shall charge half shares in the royalties, and throw in my silence as to your guilty secret. In the eyes of the world you shall still be the man who has devoted his life to the study of transepts and Byzantine ritual. Only sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when the wind howls drearily down the chimney and the rain beats against the windows, I shall think of you as the author of Coral with the Lips of Coral. Of course, if in sheer gratitude at my silence you like to take me for a much-needed holiday to the Adriatic, or somewhere equally interesting, paying all expenses, I shouldn't dream of refusing. Later in the afternoon Plovis found his aunt and Mrs. Riversedge indulging in gentle exercise in the Jacobean Garden. I've spoken to Mr. Brope about F, he announced. How splendid of you! What did he say? came in a quick chorus from the two ladies. He was quite frank and straightforward with me when he saw that I knew his secret, said Plovis, and it seems that his intentions were quite serious, if slightly unsuitable. I tried to show him the impracticability of the course that he was following. He said he wanted to be understood, and he seemed to think that Florender would excel in that requirement, but I pointed out that there were probably dozens of delicately nurtured pure-hearted young English girls who would be capable of understanding him, while Florender was the only person in the world who understood my aunt's hair. That rather weighed with him, for he's not really a selfish animal if you take him in the right way, and when I appealed to the memory of his happy childish days, spent amid the daisyed fields of latent buzzard, I suppose Daisy's do-grow there, he was obviously affected. Anyhow he gave me his word that he would put Florender absolutely out of his mind, and he has agreed to go for a short trip abroad as the best distraction for his thoughts. I am going with him as far as Ragusa. If my aunt should wish to give me a really nice scarf-pin, to be chosen by myself, as a small recognition of the very considerable service I have done her, I shouldn't dream of refusing. I'm not one of those who think that because one is abroad, one can go about dressed anyhow. A few weeks later, in Blackpool and places where they sing, the following refrain held undisputed sway. How you bore me, Florey, with those eyes of vacant blue. You'll be very sorry, Florey, if I marry you. Though I'm easy-going, Florey, this I swear is true. I'll throw you down a quarry, Florey, if I marry you. End of the secret sin of Septimus Brope. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarki Others of Grace Although he was scarcely yet out of his teens, the Duke of Skor was already marked out as a personality widely differing from others of his caste and period. Not in externals, therein he conformed correctly to type. His hair was faintly reminiscent of Ubingan, and at the other end of him his shoes exhaled the right sous-en of Harness Room. His socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect, and his attitude in repose had just that suggestion of Whistler's mother so becoming in the really young. It was within that the trouble lay, if trouble it could be accounted, which marked him apart from his fellows. The Duke was religious. Not in any of the ordinary senses of the word. He took small heed of high church or evangelical standpoints. He stood outside of all the movements and missions and cults and crusades of the day, uncaring and uninterested. Yet in a mystical, practical way of his own, which had served him unscathed and unshaken through the fickle years of boyhood, he was intensely and intensively religious. His family were naturally, though unobtrusively, distressed about it. I am so afraid it may affect his bridge," said his mother. The Duke sat in a penny-worth of chair in St. James's Park, listening to the pessimisms of Belter Bay, who reviewed the existing political situation from the gloomiest of standpoints. "'Where I think you political spade-workers are so silly,' said the Duke, "'is in the misdirection of your efforts. You spend thousands of pounds of money, and heaven knows how much dynamic force of brain-power and personal energy in trying to elect or displace this or that man, whereas you could gain your end so much more simply by making use of the men as you find them. If they don't suit your purpose, as they are, transform them into something more satisfactory. "'Do you refer to hypnotic suggestion?' asked Belter Bay, with the air of one who is being trifled with. "'Nothing of the sort. Do you understand what I mean by the verb to curpinic? That is to say, to replace an authority by a spurious imitation that would carry just as much weight for the moment as the displaced original. The advantage, of course, being that the curpinic replica would do what you wanted, whereas the original does what seems best in its own eyes. "'I suppose every public man has a double, if not two or three,' said Belter Bay. But it would be a pretty hard task to curpinic a whole bunch of them, and keep the originals out of the way. "'There have been instances in European history of highly successful curpinickery,' said the Duke dreamily. "'Oh, of course, there have been false dimetries and perky war-becks, who imposed on the world for a time,' assented Belter Bay, but they personated people who were dead or safely out of the way. That was a comparatively simple matter. It would be far easier to pass oneself off as dead Hannibal than as living Haldane, for instance.' "'I was thinking,' said the Duke, of the most famous case of all, the angel who curpinicked King Robert of Sicily with such brilliant results. Just imagine what an advantage it would be to have angels deputizing, to use a horrible but convenient word, for Quinston and Lord Hugo Sizzle, for example, how much smoother the parliamentary machine would work than at present.' "'Now you're talking nonsense,' said Belter Bay. "'Angels don't exist nowadays—at least, not in that way. So what is the use of dragging them into a serious discussion? It's merely silly.' "'If you talk to me like that I shall just do it,' said the Duke.' "'Do what?' asked Belter Bay. There were times when his young friend's uncanny remarks rather frightened him. I shall summon angelic forces to take over some of the more troublesome personalities of our public life, and I shall send the ousted originals into temporary retirement in suitable animal organisms. It's not every one who would have the knowledge or the power necessary to bring such a thing off.' "'Oh, stop that, inane rubbish,' said Belter Bay angrily. "'It's getting wearisome.' "'Here's Quinston coming,' he added, as their approached along the almost deserted path, the well-known figure of a young Cabinet minister, whose personality evoked a curious mixture of public interest and unpopularity. "'Hurry along, my dear man,' said the young Duke to the minister, who had given him a condescending nod. "'Your time is running short,' he continued in a provocative strain. "'The whole inept crowd of you will shortly be swept away into the world's waste-paper-basket.' "'You poor little straw-beliefed non-entity,' said the minister, checking himself for a moment in his stride, and rolling out his words spasmodically. "'Who is going to sweep us away, I should like to know? The voting masses are on our side, and all the ability and administrative talent is on our side, too. No power of earth or heaven is going to move us from our place till we choose to quit it. No power of earth or—' Belter Bay saw with bulging eyes a sudden void where a moment earlier had been a Cabinet minister. A void emphasized rather than relieved by the presence of a puffed-out bewildered looking sparrow, which hopped about for a moment in a dazed fashion, and then fell to a violent cheaping and scolding. "'If we could understand sparrow language,' said the Duke serenely, "'I fancy we should hear something infinitely worse than strawberry-leafed non-entity. But good heavens, Eugene,' said Belter Bay hoarsely. "'What has become of—why, there he is! How on earth did he get there?' And he pointed with a shaking finger towards assemblance of the banished minister, which approached once more along the unfrequented path. The Duke laughed. "'It is Quinston to all outward appearance,' he said compositely. "'But I fancy you will find, on closer investigation, that it is an angel understudy of the real article.' The angel Quinston greeted them with a friendly smile. "'How beastly happy you two look sitting there,' he said wistfully. "'I don't suppose you'd care to change places with poor little us,' replied the Duke chaffingly. "'How about poor little me?' said the angel modestly. "'I've got to run about behind the wheels of popularity like a spotted dog behind a carriage, getting all the dust, and trying to look as if I was an important part of the machine. I must seem a perfect fool to you onlookers sometimes.' "'I think you're a perfect angel,' said the Duke. The angel that had been Quinston, smiled and passed on his way, pursued across the breadth of the horse-guards parade by a tiresome little sparrow that cheaped incessantly and furiously at him. "'That's only the beginning,' said the Duke complacently. "'I've made it operative with all of them, irrespective of parties.' Beltabay made no coherent reply. He was engaged in feeling his pulse. The Duke fixed his attention with some interest on a black swam that was swimming with haughty, stiff-necked aloofness amid the crowd of lesser waterfowl that dotted the ornamental water. For all its pride of bearing something was evidently ruffling and enraging it. In its way it seemed as angry and amazed as the sparrow had been. At the same moment a human figure came along the pathway. Beltabay looked up apprehensively. "'Kedzen,' he whispered briefly. "'An angel, Kedzen, if I am not mistaken,' said the Duke, "'look, he is talking affably to a human being. That settles it.' A shabbily dressed lounger had accosted the man who had been Viceroy in the splendid East, and who still reflected in his means some of the cold dignity of the Himalayan snow-peaks. "'Did you tell me, sir, if them white birds is stalks or halbatrosses? I had an argument.' The cold dignity thawed at once into genial friendliness. "'Those are pelicans, my dear sir. Are you interested in birds? If you would join me in a bun and a glass of milk at the stall yonder, I could tell you some interesting things about Indian birds. Righto, now the hill-miner, for instance.' The two men disappeared in the direction of the bun stall, chatting volubly as they went, and shadowed from the other side of the railed enclosure by a black swan, whose temper seemed to have reached the limit of inarticulate rage. Beltabay gazed in an open-mouthed wonder after the retreating couple, then transferred his attention to the infuriated swan, and finally turned with a look of scared comprehension at his young friend lolling unconcernedly in his chair. There was no longer any reason to doubt what was happening. The silly talk had been translated into terrifying action. I think a prairie oyster on the top of a stiffish brandy and soda might save my reason," said Beltabay weakly as he limped towards his club. It was late in the day before he could steady his nerves sufficiently to glance at the evening papers. The Parliamentary report proved significant reading, and confirmed the fears that he had been trying to shake off. Mr. App Dave, the Chancellor, whose lively, controversial style endeared him to his supporters and embittered him politically speaking to his opponents, had risen in his place to make an unprovoked apology for having eluded, in a recent speech, to certain protesting taxpayers as skulkers. He had realized, on reflection, that they were in all probability perfectly honest in their inability to understand certain legal technicalities of the new finance laws. The House had scarcely recovered from this sensation, when Lord Hugo Sizzle caused a further flutter of astonishment by going out of his way to indulge in an outspoken appreciation of the fairness, loyalty, and straightforwardness not only of the Chancellor, but of all the members of the Cabinet. A wit had gravely suggested moving the adjournment of the House in view of the unexpected circumstances that had arisen. Belter Bay anxiously skimmed over a further item of news printed immediately below the parliamentary report. Wildcat found in an exhausted condition in Pallis Yard. Now I wonder which of them he mused. And then an appalling idea came to him, supposing he's put them both into the same beast. He hurriedly ordered another prairie oyster. Belter Bay was known in his club as a strictly moderate drinker, but his consumption of alcoholic stimulants that day gave rise to considerable comment. The events of the next few days were pequently bewildering to the world at large. To Belter Bay, who knew dimly what was happening, the situation was fraught with recurring alarms. The old saying that in politics it's the unexpected that all was happens, received a justification that it had hitherto somewhat lacked, and the epidemic of startling personal changes of front was not wholly confined to the realm of actual politics. The eminent chocolate magnet, Sadbury, whose antipathy to the turf and everything connected with it was a matter of general knowledge, had evidently been replaced by an angel, Sadbury, who proceeded to electrify the public by blossoming forth as an owner of race-horses, giving as a reason his matured conviction that the sport was, after all, one which gave healthy open-air recreation to large numbers of people drawn from all classes of the community, and incidentally stimulated the important industry of horse-breeding. His colors, chocolate and cream hoops, bangled with pink stars, pressed to become as popular as any on the turf. At the same time, in order to give effect to his condemnation of the evils resulting from the spread of the gambling habit among wage-earning classes, who lived for the most part from hand to mouth, he suppressed all betting news and tipsters' forecasts in the popular evening paper that was under his control. His action received instant recognition and support from the angel proprietor of the evening views, the principal rival evening haypney paper, who forthwith issued an UK's decreeing a similar ban on betting news, and in a short while the regular evening press was purged of all mention of starting prices and probable winners. A considerable drop in the circulation of all these papers was the immediate result, accompanied, of course, by a falling-off in advertisement value, while a crop of special betting broadsheets sprang up to supply the newly created want. Under their influence the betting habit became, if anything, rather more widely diffused than before. The duke had possibly overlooked the futility of curpinicking the leaders of the nation with excellently intentioned angel understudies, while leaving the mass of the people in its original condition. Further sensation and dislocation was caused in the press world by the sudden and dramatic rapprochement which took place between the angel editor of the scrutator and the angel editor of the Anglian review, who not only seized to criticize and disparage the tone and tendencies of each other's publication, but agreed to exchange editorships for alternating periods. Here again public support was not on the side of the angels. Constant readers of the scrutator complained bitterly of the strong meat which was thrust upon them at fitful intervals in place of the almost vegetarian diet to which they had become confidently accustomed. Even those who were not mentally averse to strong meat as a separate course were pardonably annoyed at being supplied with it in the pages of the scrutator, to be suddenly confronted with a pungent herring salad when one had attuned oneself to tea and toast, or to discover a richly truffled segment of pâté de foie, dissembled in a bowl of bread and milk, would be an experience that might upset the equanimity of the most placidly disposed mortal. An equally vehement outcry arose from the regular subscribers of the Anglian review, who protested against being served from time to time with literary fair, which no young person of sixteen could possibly want to devour in secret. To take infinite precautions, they complained, against the juvenile perusal of such eminently innocuous literature was like reading the riot act on an uninhabited island. Both reviews suffered a serious falling-off in circulation and influence. Peace hath its devastations as well as war. The wives of noted public men formed another element of discomfort here which the young duke had almost entirely left out of his calculations. It is sufficiently embarrassing to keep abreast of the possible wobblings and veerings round of a human husband, who, from the strength or weakness of his personal character, may leap over or slip through the barriers which divide the parties. For this reason a merciful politician usually marries late in life, when he has definitely made up his mind on which side he wishes his wife to be socially valuable. But these trials were as nothing compared to the bewilderment caused by the angel-husbands, who seemed in some cases to have revolutionised their outlook on life in the interval between breakfast and dinner, without premonition or preparation of any kind, and apparently without realising the least need for subsequent explanation. The temporary peace which brooded over the parliamentary situation was by no means reproduced in the home circles of the leading statesmen and politicians. It had been frequently and extensively remarked of Mrs. X that she would try the patience of an angel. Now the tables were reversed and she unwittingly had an opportunity for discovering that the capacity for exasperating behaviour was not all on one side. And then, with the introduction of the navy estimates, parliamentary peace suddenly dissolved. It was the old quarrel between ministers and the opposition as to the adequacy or the reverse of the government's naval program. The angel Quinston and the angel Hugo Sizzle contrived to keep the debates free from personalities and pindricks, but an enormous sensation was created when the elegant lackadaisical half and half hour threatened to bring up fifty thousand stalwarts to wreck the house if the estimates were not forthwith revised on a two-power basis. It was a memorable scene when he rose in his place in response to the scandalised shouts of his opponents and thundered forth, gentlemen, I glory in the name of Apache! Belto Bay, who had made several fruitless attempts to ring up his young friend since the fateful morning in St. James's Park, ran him to earth one afternoon at his club, smooth and spruce and unruffled as ever. Tell me, what on earth have you turned coxley-coxon into? Belto Bay asked anxiously, mentioning the name of one of the pillars of unorthodoxy in the Anglican Church. I don't fancy he believes in angels, and if he finds an angel preaching orthodox sermons from his pulpit while he's been turned into a fox terrier, he'll develop rabies in less than no time. I rather think it was a fox terrier," said the dupe lazily. Belto Bay groaned heavily and sank into a chair. Look here, Eugene! he whispered hoarsely, having first looked well round to see that no one was within hearing range. You've got to stop it. Consoles are jumping up and down, like Broncos, and that speech of half hours in the house last night has simply startled everybody out of their wits. And then on the top of it, Thistlebury, what has he been saying? asked the dupe quickly. Nothing. That's just what's so disturbing. Everyone thought it was simply inevitable that he should come out with a great epoch-making speech at this juncture, and I've just seen on the tape that he has refused to address any meetings at present, giving as a reason his opinion that something more than mere speech-making was wanted. The young dupe said nothing, but his eyes shone with quiet exultation. It's so unlike Thistlebury, continued Belto Bay. At least, he said suspiciously, it's unlike the real Thistlebury. The real Thistlebury is flying about somewhere as a vocally industrious lap-wing, said the dupe calmly. I expect great things of the angel Thistlebury, he added. At this moment there was a magnetic stampede of members towards the lobby where the tape-machines were ticking out some news of more than ordinary import. To date, in the north, Thistlebury seizes Edinburgh Castle, threatens civil war unless government expands naval program. In the babel which ensued, Belto Bay lost sight of his young friend. For the best part of the afternoon he searched one likely haunt after another, spurred on by the sensational posters which the evening papers were displaying broadcast over the West End. General Baden-Baden mobilizes Boy Scouts. Another coup d'état feared. Is Windsor Castle safe? This was one of the earlier posters, and was followed by one of even more sinister purport. Will the test-match have to be postponed? It was this disquietoning question which brought home the real seriousness of the situation to the London public, and made people wonder whether one might not pay too high a price for the advantages of party government. Belto Bay, questing round in the hope of finding the originator of the trouble, with the vague idea of being able to induce him to restore matters to their normal human footing, came across an elderly club acquaintance who dabbled extensively in some of the more sensitive market securities. He was pale with indignation, and his pallor deepened as a breathless news-boy dashed past with a poster inscribed. Premier's constituency harried by moss-troopers. Half-hour sends encouraging telegram to rioters. Letchworth Garden City threatens reprisals. Foreigners taking refuge in embassies and national liberal club. This is Devil's work," he said angrily. Belto Bay knew otherwise. At the bottom of St. James's Street a newspaper motor-cart, which had just come rapidly along Palmalle, was surrounded by a knot of eagerly talking people, and for the first time that afternoon Belto Bay heard expressions of relief and congratulation. It displayed a placard with the welcome announcement, Crisis Ended, Government Gives Way, Important Expansion of Naval Programme. There seemed to be no immediate necessity for pursuing the quest of the errant duke, and Belto Bay turned to make his way homeward through St. James's Park. His mind, attuned to the allurems and excursions of the afternoon, became dimly aware that some excitement of a detached nature was going on around him. In spite of the political ferment which reigned in the streets, quite a large crowd had gathered to watch the unfolding of a tragedy that had taken place on the shore of the ornamental water. A large black swan, which had recently shown signs of a savage and dangerous disposition, had suddenly attacked a young gentleman who was walking by the water's edge, dragged him down under the surface, and drowned him before anyone could come to his assistance. At the moment when Belto Bay arrived on the spot, several parkkeepers were engaged in lifting the corpse into a punt. Belto Bay stooped to pick up a hat that lay near the scene of the struggle. It was a smart, soft felt hat, faintly reminiscent of Ubi-Gaul. More than a month elapsed before Belto Bay had sufficiently recovered from his attack of nervous prostration to take an interest once more in what was going on in the world of politics. The parliamentary session was still in full swing, and a general election was looming in the near future. He called for a batch of morning papers, and skimmed rapidly through the speeches of the Chancellor, Quinston, and other ministerial leaders, as well as those of the principal opposition champions, and then sank back in his chair with a sigh of relief. Evidently the spell had ceased to act after the tragedy which had overtaken its invoker. There was no trace of Angel anywhere. End of Ministers of Grace. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarky. The Remolding of Groby LinkedIn. A man is known by the company he keeps. In the morning-room of his sister-in-law's house, Groby LinkedIn fidgeted away the passing minutes with the demure restlessness of advanced middle age. About a quarter of an hour would have to elapse before it would be time to say his good-byes and make his way across the village green to the station with a selected escort of nephews and nieces. He was a good-natured, kindly-dispositioned man, and in theory he was delighted to pay periodical visits to the wife and children of his dead brother William. In practice he infinitely preferred the comfort and seclusion of his own house and garden, and the companionship of his books and his parrot to these rather meaningless and tiresome incursions into a family circle with which he had little in common. It was not so much the spur of his own conscience that drove him to make the occasional short journey by rail to visit his relatives as an obedient concession to the more insistent but vicarious conscience of his brother, Colonel John, who was apt to accuse him of neglecting poor old William's family. Groby usually forgot or ignored the existence of his neighbour Kinsfolk until such time as he was threatened with a visit from the Colonel when he would put matters straight by a hurried pilgrimage across the few miles of intervening country to renew his acquaintance with the young people and assume a kindly, if rather forced, interest in the well-being of his sister-in-law. On this occasion he had cut matters so fine between the timing of his exculpatory visit and the coming of Colonel John that he would scarcely be home before the latter was due to arrive. Anyhow Groby had got it over, and six or seven months might decently elapse before he need again sacrifice his comforts and inclinations on the altar of family sociability. He was inclined to be distinctly cheerful as he hopped about the room, picking up first one object, then another, and subjecting each to a brief bird-like scrutiny. Presently his cheerful listlessness changed sharply to an attitude of vexed attention. In a scrapbook of drawings and caricatures belonging to one of his nephews he had come across an unkindly clever sketch of himself and his parrot, solemnly confronting each other in postures of ridiculous gravity and repose, and bearing a likeness to one another that the artist had done his utmost to accentuate. After the first flush of annoyance had passed away, Groby laughed good-naturedly, and admitted to himself the cleverness of the drawing. Then the feeling of resentment repossessed him. Resentment not against the caricaturist who had embodied the idea in pen and ink, but against the possible truth that the idea represented. Was it really the case that people grew in time to resemble the animals they kept as pets, and had he unconsciously become more and more like the comical is solemn bird that was his constant companion? Groby was unusually silent as he walked to the train with his escort of chattering nephews and nieces, and during the short railway journey his mind was more and more possessed with an introspective conviction that he had gradually settled down into a sort of parrot-like existence. What, after all, did his daily routine amount to but a sedate meandering and pecking and perching in his garden, among his fruit-trees, in his wicker chair on the lawn, or by the fireside in his library? And what was the sum-total of his conversation with chance-encountered neighbours? Quite a spring day, isn't it? It looks as though we should have some rain. Glad to see you about again. You must take care of yourself. How the young folks shoot up, don't they? Strings of stupid, inevitable, perfunctory remarks came to his mind. Remarks that were certainly not the mental exchange of human intelligences, but mere empty parrot-talk. One might really just as well salute one's acquaintances with pretty Polly. Puss, puss, meow! Grobey began to fume against the picture of himself as a foolish, feathered fowl, which his nephews' sketch had first suggested, and which his own accusing imagination was filling in with such unflattering detail. I'll give the beastly bird away," he said resentfully, though he knew at the same time that he would do no such thing. It would look so absurd after all the years that he had kept the parrot and made much of it suddenly to try and find it a new home. "'Has my brother arrived?' he asked of the stable boy, who had come with the pony carriage to meet him. "'Yes, sir, came down by the two fifteen. Your parrot's dead.'" The boy made the latter announcement with the relish which his class finds in proclaiming a catastrophe. "'My parrot dead,' said Grobey. "'What caused its death?' "'The Ipe,' said the boy briefly. "'The Ipe?' queried Grobey. "'What's whatever's that?' The Ipe, what the colonel brought down with him,' came the rather alarming answer. "'Do you mean to say my brother is ill?' asked Grobey. "'Is it something infectious?' The colonel so well as ever he was,' said the boy, and as no further explanation was forthcoming Grobey had to possess himself in mystified patience till he reached home. His brother was waiting for him at the hall door. "'Have you heard about the parrot?' he asked at once. "'Pon my soul, I'm awfully sorry. The moment he saw the monkey I'd brought down as a surprise for you, he squawked out, "'Rats to you, sir!' and the blessed monkey made one spring at him, got him by the neck and whirled him round like a rattle. He was as dead as mutton by the time I'd got him out of the little beggar's paws. Always been such a friendly little beast the monkey has. Should never have thought he had got it in him to see red like that. Can't tell you how sorry I feel about it. And now, of course, you all hate the sight of the monkey.' "'Not at all,' said Grobey sincerely. A few hours earlier the tragic end which had befallen his parrot would have presented itself to him as a calamity. Now it arrived almost as a polite attention on the part of the fates. "'The bird was getting old, you know.' He went on in explanation of his obvious lack of decent regret of the loss of his pet. I was really beginning to wonder if it was an unmixed kindness to let him go on living till he succumbed to old age. What a charming little monkey!' he added when he was introduced to the culprit. The newcomer was a small, long-tailed monkey from the Western hemisphere with a gentle, half-shy, half-trusting manner that instantly captured Grobey's confidence. A student of Simeon character might have seen in the fitful red light in its eyes some indication of the underlying temper which the parrot had so rashly put to the test with such dramatic consequences for itself. The servants who had come to regard the defunct bird as a regular member of the household, and one who gave really very little trouble, were scandalised to find his bloodthirsty aggressor installed in his place as an honoured domestic pet. A nasty, heathen-ype, what don't never say nothing sensible and cheerful, same as poor Polly did, was the unfavourable verdict of the kitchen-quarters. One Sunday morning, some twelve or fourteen months after the visit of Colonel John and the parrot tragedy, Miss Wepliss sat decorously in her pew in the parish church, only in front of that occupied by Grobey LinkedIn. She was, comparatively speaking, a newcomer in the neighbourhood, and was not personally acquainted with her fellow worshipper in the seat behind, but for the past two years the Sunday morning service had brought them regularly within each other's sphere of consciousness. Without having paid particular attention to the subject, she could probably have given a correct rendering of the way in which he pronounced certain words occurring in the responses, while he was well aware of the trivial fact that, in addition to her prayer-book and handkerchief, a small paper-packet of throat lozenges always reposed on the seat beside her. Miss Wepliss rarely had recourse to her lozenges, but in case she should be taken with a fit of coughing, she wished to have the emergency duly provided for. On this particular Sunday the lozenges occasioned an unusual diversion in the even tenor of her devotions, far more disturbing to her personally than a prolonged attack of coughing would have been. As she rose to take part in the singing of the first hymn, she fancied that she saw the hand of her neighbour, who was alone in the pew behind her, make a furtive downward grab at the packet lying on the seat. On turning sharply round, she found that the packet had certainly disappeared, but Mr. LinkedIn was to all outward seeming serenely intent on his hymn-book. No amount of interrogatory glaring on the part of the dispoiled lady could bring the least shade of conscious guilt to his face. Worse was to follow, as she remarked afterwards to a scandalised audience of friends and acquaintances. I had scarcely knelt in prayer when a lozinge, one of my lozenges, came whizzing into the pew just under my nose. I turned round and stared, but Mr. LinkedIn had his eyes closed and his lips moving as though engaged in prayer. The moment I resumed my devotions another lozinge came rattling in and then another. I took no notice for a while, and then turned round suddenly just as the dreadful man was about to flip another one at me. He hastily pretended to be turning over the leaves of his book, but I was not to be taken in that time. He saw that he had been discovered, and no more lozenges came. Of course I have changed my pew. No gentleman would have acted in such a disgraceful manner, said one of her listeners, and yet Mr. LinkedIn used to be so respected by everybody. He seems to have behaved like a little ill-bred schoolboy. He behaved like a monkey, said Miss Wepley. Her unfavorable verdict was echoed in other quarters about the same time. Grobie LinkedIn had never been a hero in the eyes of his personal retainers, but he had shared the approval according to his defunct parrot as a cheerful, well-dispositioned body who gave no particular trouble. Of late months, however, this character would hardly have been endorsed by the members of his domestic establishment. The stolid stable boy who had first announced to him the tragic end of his feathered pet was one of the first to give voice to the murmurs of disapproval which became rampant and general in the servants' quarters, and he had fairly substantial grounds for his disaffection. In a burst of hot summer weather he had obtained permission to bathe in a modest-sized pond in the orchard, and thither one afternoon Grobie had bent his steps, attracted by loud imprecations of anger, mingled with the shriller chattering of monkey-language. He beheld his plump diminutive servitor, clad only in a waistcoat and a pair of socks, storming ineffectually at the monkey which was seated on a low branch of an apple-tree, abstractedly fingering the remainder of the boy's outfit which he had removed just out of his reach. The eyep's been and took my clothes, fined the boy with the passion of his kind for explaining the obvious. His incomplete toilet effect rather embarrassed him, but he hailed the arrival of Grobie with relief as promising moral and material support in his efforts to get back his raided garments. The monkey had ceased its defiant jabbering, and, doubtless with a little coaxing from its master, it would hand back the plunder. If I lift you up, suggested Grobie, you will just be able to reach the clothes. The boy agreed, and Grobie clutched him firmly by the waistcoat, which was about all there was to catch hold of, and lifted him clear of the ground. Then, with a deft swing, he sent him crashing into a clump of tall nettles which closed receptively round him. The victim had not been brought up in a school which teaches one to repress one's emotions. If a fox had attempted to gnaw at his vitals, he would have flown to complain to the nearest hunt committee rather than have affected an attitude of stoical indifference. On this occasion the volume of sound which he produced under the stimulus of pain and rage and astonishment was generous and sustained, but above his bellowings he could distinctly hear the triumphant chattering of his enemy in the tree, and appeal of shrill laughter from Grobie. When the boy had finished an improvised St. Vitus Cadacol, which would have brought him fame on the boards of the Coliseum, and which indeed met with ready appreciation and applause from the retreating figure of Grobie LinkedIn, he found that the monkey had also discreetly retired, while his clothes were scattered on the grass at the foot of the tree. They aimed two ips, that's what they be, he muttered angrily, and if his judgment was severe at least he spoke under the sting of considerable provocation. It was a week or two later that the Parliament gave notice, having been terrified almost to tears by an outbreak of sudden temper on the part of the Master, and then some underdone cutlets. He gnashed his teeth at me! He did really!" she informed a sympathetic kitchen audience. I'd like to see him talk like that to me, I would, said the cook defiantly, but her cooking from that moment showed a marked improvement. It was seldom that Grobie LinkedIn so far detached himself from his accustomed habits as to go and form one of a house-party, and he was not a little peaked that Mrs. Glendorf should have stowed him away in the musty old Georgian wing of the house, in the next room mord over to Leonard's spabbing the eminent pianist. He plays list like an angel, had been the hostess's enthusiastic testimonial. He may play him like a trout for all I care, had been Grobie's mental comment, but I wouldn't mind betting that he snores. He is just the sort and shape that would, and if I hear him snoring through those ridiculous thin-paneled walls there'll be trouble. He did, and there was. Grobie stood it for about two-and-a-quarter minutes, and then made his way through the corridor into Spabbing's room. Under Grobie's vigorous measures the musician's flabby, redundant figure sat up in bewildered semi-consciousness like an ice-cream that has been taught to beg. Grobie prodded him into complete wakefulness, and then the pettish self-satisfied pianist fairly lost his temper and slapped his domineering visitant on the hand. In another moment Spabbing was being nearly stifled and very effectively gagged by a pillowcase tightly bound round his head. While his plump pajama limbs were hauled out of bed and smacked, pinched, kicked, and bumped in a catcher's cat-can progress across the floor, towards the flat shallow bath in whose utterly inadequate depths Grobie perseveringly strove to drown him. For a few moments the room was almost in darkness. Grobie's candle had overturned in an early stage of the scuffle, and its flicker scarcely reached to the spot where splashing, smacks, muffled cries, and splutterings, and a chatter of ape-like rage told of the struggle that was being waged round the shores of the bath. A few instance later the one-sided combat was brightly lit up by the flare of blazing curtains and rapidly kindling panelling. When the hastily aroused members of the house-party stampeded out onto the lawn, the Georgian wing was well alight and belching forth masses of smoke, but some moments elapsed before Grobie appeared with the half-drowned pianist in his arms, having just bethought him of the superior drowning facilities offered by the pond at the bottom of the lawn. The cool night air sobered his rage, and when he found that he was innocently acclaimed as the heroic rescuer of poor Leonard Spabink, and loudly commended for his presence of mind in tying a wet cloth round his head to protect him from smoke suffocation, he accepted the situation and subsequently gave a graphic account of his finding the musician asleep with an overturned candle by his side, and the conflagration well started. Spabink gave his version some days later when he had partially recovered from the shock of his midnight castigation and immersion, but the gentle pitying smiles and evasive comments with which his story was greeted warned him that the public ear was not at his disposal. He refused, however, to attend the ceremonial presentation of the Royal Humane Society's life-saving medal. It was about this time that Grobie's pet monkey fell a victim to the disease which attacks so many of its kind when brought under the influence of a northern climate. Its master appeared to be profoundly affected by its loss, and never quite recovered the level of spirits that he had recently attained. In company with the tortoise which Colonel John presented to him on his last visit, he potters about his lawn and kitchen garden with none of his erstwhile sprightliness, and his nephews and nieces are fairly well justified in alluding to him as Old Uncle Grobie. And of the remoulding of Grobie LinkedIn. This recording is in the public domain.