Children of clergy -- Fiction; Clergy -- England -- Fiction
"I don't think I can stand any more of this," he repeated. "I shall
have apoplexy if this goes on."
The clever women hissed angrily about the kind of people that came to
theatres nowadays.
"This man Maeterlinck must have escaped from an asylum," Father Rowley
went on. "I never heard such deplorable nonsense in my life."
"I shall ask an attendant if we can change our seats," snapped one of
the clever women in front. "That's the worst of coming to a Saturday
afternoon performance, such extraordinary people come up to town on
Saturdays."
"There you are," exclaimed Father Rowley loudly, "even that poor woman
in front thinks they're extraordinary."
"She's talking about you," said Mark, "not about the people in the
play."
"My good woman," said Father Rowley, leaning over and tapping her on the
shoulder. "You don't think that you really enjoy this rubbish, do you?"
One of her friends who was near the gangway called out to a programme
seller:
"Attendant, attendant, is it possible for my friends and myself to move
into another row? We are being pestered with a running commentary by
that stout clergyman behind that lady in green."
"Don't disturb yourselves, you foolish geese," said Father Rowley
rising. "I'm not going to sit through another act. Come along, Mark,
come along, come along. I am not happy. I am not happy," he cried in an
absurd falsetto.
Then roaring with laughter at his own imitation of Mélisande, he went
rolling out of the theatre and sniffed contentedly the air of the
Strand.
"I told Lady Pechell we shouldn't arrive till tea-time, so we'd better
go and ride on the top of a bus as far as the city."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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