Humorous stories; London (England) -- Fiction; Lucia (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Women -- England -- Fiction
“Georgie, why shouldn’t we see if Abfou has anything to say about it?”
she asked. “After all, Abfou told us to make a museum, and that hasn’t
turned out so badly. Abfou was practical; what he suggested led to
something.”
Though the notion that Daisy had thought of the Museum and pushed
flitted through Georgie’s mind, there was something in what she said,
for certainly Abfou had written museum (if it wasn’t “mouse”) and there
was the Museum which had turned out so profitably for the Committee.
“We might try,” he said.
Daisy instantly got out her planchette, which sadly wanted dusting, and
it began to move almost as soon as they laid their hands on it: Abfou
was in a rather inartistic hurry. And it really wasn’t very wise of
Daisy to close her eyes and snort: it was indeed light fiddlesticks to
do that. It was a sheer unconvincing plagiarism from Lucia, and his
distrust of Daisy and of Abfou immeasurably deepened. Furiously the
pencil scribbled, going off the paper occasionally and writing on the
table till Georgie could insert the paper under it: it was evident that
Abfou was very indignant about something, and there was no need to
inquire what that was. For some time the writing seemed to feel to
Georgie like Arabic, but presently the pencil slowed down, and he
thought some English was coming through. Finally Abfou gave a great
scrawl, as he usually did when the message was complete, and Daisy
looked dreamily up.
“Anything?” she said.
“It’s been writing hard,” said Georgie.
They examined the script. It began, as he had expected, with quantities
of Arabic, and then (as he had expected) dropped into English, which was
quite legible.
“Beware of charlatans,” wrote Abfou, “beware of Southern charlatans. All
spirits are not true and faithful like Abfou, who instituted your
Museum. False guides deceive. A warning from Abfou.”
“Well, if that isn’t convincing, I don’t know what is,” said Daisy.
Georgie thought it convincing too.
The din of battle began to rise. It was known that very evening, for
Colonel and Mrs. Boucher dined with Georgie, that he and Lucia (for
Georgie did not give all the credit to Lucia) had received that
remarkable message from Vittoria about fire and water and the dog and
the angry old woman, and it was agreed that Abfou cut a very poor
figure, and had a jealous temper. Why hadn’t Abfou done something
better than merely warn them against Southern Charlatans?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account