Amnesiacs -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction
The Baron's finger waved this remark aside impatiently. "I will fairy
the syllogism," he shouted. "Either your husband _is_ Mr. Harrisson,
or he is _not_. He cannot be neither." This was granted. "Ferry well,
then. If he is Mr. Harrisson, Mr. Harrisson has doled fips. But I know
Mr. Harrisson would not dell fips. Imbossible!"
"And if he is not?" The Baron points out that in this case his
statement is true by hypothesis, to say nothing of the intrinsic
probability of truthfulness on the part of any one so like Mr.
Harrisson. He is careful to dwell on the fact that this consideration
of the matter is purely analysis of a metaphysical crux, indulged in
for scientific illumination. He then goes on to apologize for having
been so very positive. But no doubt one or two minor circumstances had
so affected his imagination that he saw a very strong likeness where
only a very slight one existed. "I shall look again. I shall be wicer
next time." But what were the minor circumstances, Rosalind asked.
"There was the French--the lankwitch--that was one. But there was
another--his _noce_! I will tell you. When my frent Harrisson gribe
holt of that wheel, his head go down etchwice." The Baron tried to hint
at this with his own head, but his neck, which was like a prize-bull's,
would not lend itself to the illustration. "That wheel was ferry
smooth--with a sharp gorner. _His noce touch that corner._" The Baron
said no more in words, but pantomimic action and a whistle showed
plainly how the wheel-rim had glided on the bridge of Mr. Harrisson's
nose. "It took off the gewdiggle, and made a sgar. Your hussband's
noce has that ferry sgar. That affected my imatchination. It is easy
to unterzdant."
But the subject was frightening Rosalind. She would have liked to hear
much more about Mr. Harrisson; might ever have ended by taking the fat
Baron, whom she thoroughly liked, into her confidence. The difficulty,
however, was about decision in immediate action, which would be
irrevocable. Silence was safer--or, sleep on it at least. For now, she
must change the conversation.
"How sweet the singing sounds under the starlight!" But the Baron will
not tolerate any such loose inaccuracy.
"It would sount the same in the taydime. The fibrations are the same."
But he more than makes up for his harsh prosaism by singing, in unison
with the singers unseen:
"Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten
Dass ich so traurig bin...."
No one could ever have imagined that such heavenly sounds could come
from anything so fat and noisy. Mrs. Fenwick shuts her eyes to listen.
When she opens them again, jerked back from a temporary dream-paradise
by the Baron remarking with the voice of Stentor or Boanerges that it
is a "ferry broody lied," her husband is standing there. He has been
listening to the music. The Baron adds that his friend Mr. Harrisson
was "ferry vond of that lied."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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