Frivolities, Especially Addressed to Those Who Are Tired of Being SeriousMarsh, Richard
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Frivolities, Especially Addressed to Those Who Are Tired of Being Serious
Marsh, Richard
Fiction; Humorous stories, English; Short stories, English
The flyman moved aside, just in time to avoid the full force of a
blow, which although it missed his head, at which it was aimed, and
only shaved his shoulder, made him roar with pain. A boy, one of the
fares, was standing up in the fly, grasping, with both his hands, a
curious weapon of offence--a wooden leg.
"You young murdering villain!" shouted the flyman, clapping his hand
to his injured shoulder. "I've half a mind to break every bone in your
body."
"I would if I were you," retorted the lad "Try it on. You've been
saucing me all the way. I may only have one leg, but yours wouldn't be
the first head which I've splintered with a wooden one. Then _you'd_
be a living curiosity, I guess."
This young gentleman entered Mulberry House hopping upon one leg. The
wooden limb he carried in his hands. After him followed a second young
gentleman, who, since one of his sleeves was pinned up to his coat,
was apparently possessed of but a single arm.
"There's a armless young gentleman in the drawing-room," announced
Sarah to her master, "and another what's got his leg tucked under his
arm."
The announcement did not appear to take the principal of Mulberry
House by surprise.
"Further samples of the assorted lot," he murmured.
He was right. The strangers were two more examples of the fecundity
and the versatility of Mr. Bindon. The young gentleman with "his leg
tucked under his arm" declared his name to be Oscar J. Oswald Bindon.
The young gentleman with only one arm under which a leg could possibly
be "tucked" was another John T. Jasper Bindon.
"I understood from your father," said Mr. Harland, "that this lot
would consist of five, or possibly seven. May I ask if there are any
more of you to follow? This dropping in unexpectedly, by ones and
twos, Mrs. Harland and I find a little inconvenient."
"There's two more coming. But we wouldn't have anything to do with
them because they stutter."
This repudiation comes from Oscar J. Oswald. As he spoke he was
fastening on his wooden leg.
Two or three hours afterwards the fly--the same fly--drove up again to
Mulberry House. The same flyman was on the box.
"Sarah," he whispered from behind his hand, probably taught prudence
by experience, "here's two more stutters."
II.
Mrs. Harland was superintending the putting out of the "clean things."
It was Saturday. On Sundays, at Mulberry House, all the pupils
"changed."
"If you please, ma'am, there's a person in the drawing-room who says
she's Mrs. Bindon."
"Mrs. Bindon!" Mrs. Harland was lifting a pile of clean linen. It fell
from her hands. Day-shirts and night-shirts were scattered on the
floor. The lady eyed the maid standing in the doorway as though she
were some creature of strange and fearful import. "Whom did she ask to
see?"
"She asked to see the schoolmaster."
"The schoolmaster?"
Mrs. Harland pursed her lips.
"Yes, ma'am. She didn't mention any name. And master's out."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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