Cullen but that duke is most horribly mauled. His
ground. rents,--yah! Another word of which Mr. Cullen is fond is
'strattum,'--usually spelt and pronounced with but one t midway. You
and I have the misfortune to belong to a social 'strattum' which is
trampled flat and hard beneath the feet of the landowners. Mr.
Cullen rises to such a point of fury that one dreads the
consequences--to himself. Already the chairman is on his feet,
intimating in dumb show that the allowed ten minutes have elapsed;
there is no making the orator hear. At length his friend who sits by
him fairly grips his coat-tails and brings him to a sitting posture,
amid mirthful tumult. Mr. Cullen joins in the mirth, looks as though
he had never been angry in his life. And till next Sunday comes
round he will neither speak nor think of the social question.
Mr. Cowes is unopposed. After the preceding enthusiast, the voice of
Mr. Cowes falls soothingly as a stream among the heather. He is
tall, meagre, bald; he wears a very broad black necktie, his hand
saws up and down. Mr. Cowes' tone is the quietly venomous; in a few
minutes you believe in his indignation far more than in that of Mr.
Cullen. He makes a point and pauses to observe the effect upon his
hearers. He prides himself upon his grammar, goes back to correct a
concord, emphasises eccentricities of pronunciation; for instance,
he accents 'capitalist' on the second syllable, and repeats the
words with grave challenge to all and sundry.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127