Part 2 (2/2)
”Have you beenwith my music rolls?”
”No, father I only read the labels”
This child si a funeral march?” Edward Henry demanded
”Oh, _I_ didn't tell hi herself before she was accused She s all But there were moments when Edward Henry hated moral superiority and Christian meekness in a wife Moreover, Nellie so, with an artificial continuation of the smile, ”You needn't look at _h he had indeed ventured to look at her, he had not looked at her in the manner which she is,” Robert explained
”Well, it see a funeral ht this rather funny, rather worthy of hiravity and a touch of disdain (for he was a disdainful child, without bowels):
”I don't knohat you randmother's lips) appeared to say: ”I wish you wouldn't try to be silly, father” However, youth forgets very quickly, and the next instant Robert was beginning once reement of the parents the child was never addressed as ”Bob” or ”Bobby,” or by any other diminutive In their practical opinion a child's naht not to be mauled or dismembered on the pretext of fondness Similarly, the child had not been baptized after his father, or after any male member of either the Machin or the Cotterill family Why should family names be perpetuated merely because they were faainst the excessive sentimentalism of the Victorian era!
”What does 'sta other activities, busied hie stamps, and in consequence his father's mind, under the ie stamps
”Stamped out?” said Edward Henry, with the air of oe stamps are stamped out--by a machine--you see”
Robert's scorn of this explanation was manifest
”Well,” Edward Henry, piqued, made another attempt, ”you stamp a fire out with your feet” And he stamped illustratively on the floor After all, the child was only eight
”I knew all that before,” said Robert, coldly ”You don't understand”
”What ” Nellie's voice was soothing
”Yes,” Robert”That's it It says in the _Encyclopaedia_ that hydrophobia is sta order Who is Mr Long?”
A second bomb had fallen on exactly the same spot as the first, and the two exploded simultaneously And the explosion was none the less terrible because it was silent and invisible The tidy domestic chamber was strewn in a moment with an awful mass of wounded susceptibilities Beyond the screen the _nick-nick_ of grandain It was characteristic of her teenerations could recover Edward Henry, as befitted his sex, regained his nerve a little earlier than Nellie
”I told you never to touch my _Encyclopaedia_,” said he, sternly
Robert had twice been caught on his stomach on the floor with a vast volume open under his chin, and his studies had been traced by vile thumb-ave that child a piece of unsolicited information he almost invariably replied, ”I know”
”But hydrophobia!” cried Nellie ”How did you know about hydrophobia?”
”We had it in spellings last week,” Robert explained
”The deuce you did!” muttered Edward Henry