“Now, say that’s the bird,” he said, and suddenly, like a flash of lightning, his right index finger was quivering upon the air. Involuntarily Simeon leapt round and stared at the aspidistra, and then like the deafening downburst of a tornado, my father expanded his chest, threw back his head, and opened the full floodgates of his passion. Pallid and cowering, Simeon crept behind the armchair while syllable after syllable rent the night, and the delirious harmonium leapt and crashed down again beneath the palpitant thunder of my father’s blows. Then for five minutes there was a comparative calm, while Simeon Whey crept from his shelter, until the ultimate crescendo stretched him helpless on the carpet, blue in the face, and fighting for his breath. Then he staggered to his feet and sank into the armchair, while my father once more picked up the harmonium. “Oh, kck,” he said, “kck.” It was all that the poor youth was able to utter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XII Breakfast finds us calm but grave. My mother is allowed to accompany us to church. My father’s clothing and general demeanour. Remark of Simeon Whey on my father’s hat. First impressions of the new lectern. Unmistakable evidences of guilt. The vicar’s feeble apologia. A devilish device and its disastrous results. I race with Corkran for half-a-crown. My poor father is three times dropped. IMPECCABLE in logic, as I have already said, succinct in argument, and perfect in phrasing, it is with the profoundest regret that I have been obliged to omit from these pages the actual words of my father’s denunciation; and I should like to make it quite clear that for the inevitable disappointment my publishers alone must bear the blame. Bitterly as I have protested, however, they have replied to every argument with sordid references to the cost of production, and this volume has in consequence been rushed through the press deprived of my poor father’s terrible indictment.[8] Nor is this the less deplorable because at the last moment my father himself was prohibited from uttering it, owing to an intervention of Providence as little to have been expected as it has always appeared to me inexplicable. Indeed, had we foreseen it, I doubt if either my father or myself would have been able to retain his sanity, and we should certainly not have met, as we did the next morning, in a comparatively cheerful frame of mind. Footnote 8: It is my full intention, however, to pursue this matter further, and any reader desirous of signing an appeal should instantly communicate with me at Wilhelmina, Nassington Park Gardens, Hornsey.