Changing Winds: A NovelErvine, St. John G. (St. John Greer)
General
Changing Winds: A Novel
Ervine, St. John G. (St. John Greer)
Fiction
Henry was in the garden when John Marsh arrived, accompanied by Mr.
Quinn. Two letters had come to him that morning from England--one from
Gilbert Farlow and the other from Mary Graham, and he was reading them
again for the seventh or eighth time when the dogcart drove up to the
house.
_My dear old ass,_ Gilbert wrote, _why grizzle and grouse at the
Bally Awful! That's my name now for things which can't be helped.
I've taught it to Ninian, but he persists in calling it the Bloody
Awful, which is low. He says that doesn't matter because he is low.
Roger and I have had to clout his head rather severely lately ...
it took two of us to do it.... Roger held his arms while I clouted
him ... because he has become fearfully democratic, meaning by
that, that anybody who knows more than his alphabet is an enemy of
the poor. Roger and I are dead nuts on aristocracy at present. We
go about saying, "My God, I'm a superman!" and try to look like
Bernard Shaw. Roger only succeeds in looking like Little Lord
Fauntleroy. But all this is away from the point, which is, why
grizzle and grouse at the Bally Awful. If your papa will send you
to T.C.D., you must just grin and bear it, my lad. I've never met
anybody from Trinity.... I suppose people do come out of it after
they get into it ... but if you're careful and remember the example
of your little friends, Gilbert and Ninian and Roger, you'll come
to no harm. And when you do come to London, we'll try to improve
what's left of your poor mind. It would be splendid to go to
Ballymartin for the summer. Tell your papa that Ninian and Roger
and I solemnly cursed him three times for preventing you from
coming to Cambridge, and then gave him three cheers for asking us
to Ireland. The top of the morning to you, my broth of a boy, and
the heavens be your bed, bedad and bejabers, as you say in your
country, according to Punch. Yours ever, Gilbert._
_P.S. What about that two bob you owe me?_
Mary's letter was shorter than Gilbert's.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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