Mangan's favour when it
threw him into her house and her hands. It was a very select party,
only a score or so of boys and girls, with the elders appertaining to
them. Nurse Brennan had departed, taking with her Larry's young
affections, and a gift, costly and superfluous, of a silver-mounted
mirror, which was accompanied by some chaste lines, expressive of
Master Coppinger's desire to share its privileges, whose composition
had kept him happy throughout a long, wet afternoon.
The party, having opened with lemonade, tea and innumerable cakes,
moved on through "a little music," (contributed exclusively by the
Mangan Quartet) to games. Larry, afflicted by the discovery that he
had, during his illness, outgrown his evening clothes, found himself
fated to do conspicuous things in the centre of a space, cleared as
for a prize-fight, in the Mangan drawing-room. Problems in connection
with a ship that came from China. Exhausting efforts in guessing
absurdities, that usually necessitated withdrawal to the landing
outside the door with a giggling schoolgirl, and collaboration with
her in a code of complicated signals. And, blackest feature of all,
mistakes in any of these arduous matters entailed "forfeits," and the
process entitled "paying the forfeits," meant a concentration of
attention upon a young gentleman, conscious to agony of the fact that
his trousers left his ankle-bones unshielded from the public gaze.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104