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Then there is the perpetual asking for money, and worryingabout the rent.
We
walked home from there and I lecturedhim all the way.
Four or five hours after
I got into bed I got used to thedrone of Agathas voice, and fell asleep. I knew
immediately that Stanley had seized hisopportunity.
He was startled but soon
regained his normal nimbleness ofmind. When I say that I am the end of the
line, Ido not disregard Stanley. Go on, he urged, in a hoarse whisper, go on,
Jack. Any unpleasantnesswhere I was the goat could always command Agathas and
Gertrudeshearty support. Well, a hat is not much good without a coat, is it? He
was gazing out the windowas if he already saw the elephants advancing with
writhing tentacles. His name is Day, really, but all the boys call him
Daisy.
It sounded like the war-cry of the Randwick Rovers.
Being over-civilized
and highly strung, there are times when the merethought of work turns me
sick.
I lay back on my pillow and puffed contentedly.
There were so many things
to prey upon mymind. Stanley, I said, sorrowfully waving my hand at the debris
on thefloor, What is this? And his mother will back him up in anyfool thing so
long as Im made to look ridiculous. Almost immediately a voice welled upfrom
somewhere in the remote darkness. Father, Im surprised at you talking about
that. A long drawn-outwail came startlingly from out of the blackness of the
night.
Things of which it is no earthly use to think. No one can spring that
stuff on me and get off with it. Thats all right, I said, Ive got a pound or
two your motherdoesnt know about.
When the starving wanderer, lost in the
desert, first starts tolose his reason; what does he see?
When he was younger,
Stanley was a Boy Scout.
The phrase struck me at the time asa good title for a
Fox-Buttom or something.
Same fierce, handsome face, same dark
mysteriouseyes.
What a pity, she sighed, straightening her shingle.
Supporting
myself with one hand on the wall, I made my way out of theroom in silence.
I
think Ill go over to that table, dad, he said.
He surveyed me curiously as I
stood panting on one leg, holding myshin. I turned wearily to the wash-tubs
where I had left my coat and hat theprevious night.
Agatha went out of the
room, presumably to cut a few sandwiches forStanley to take to South Africa.
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