章节正文
to choose the name of a dish and do something futile when
it is called out. In this case they would probably burst
into tears when their dish is mentioned. It would be a
heavenly picnic."
Mrs. Thackenbury was silent for a moment; she was
probably making a mental list of the people she would
like to invite to the Duke Humphrey picnic. Presently
she asked: "And that odious young man, Waldo Plubley, who
is always coddling himself - have you thought of anything
that one could do to him?" Evidently she was beginning
to see the possibilities of Nemesis Day.
"If there was anything like a general observance of
the festival," said Clovis, "Waldo would be in such
demand that you would have to bespeak him weeks
beforehand, and even then, if there were an east wind
blowing or a cloud or two in the sky he might be too
careful of his precious self to come out. It would be
rather jolly if you could lure him into a hammock in the
orchard, just near the spot where there is a wasps' nest
every summer. A comfortable hammock on a warm afternoon
would appeal to his indolent tastes, and then, when he
was getting drowsy, a lighted fusee thrown into the nest
would bring the wasps out in an indignant mass, and they
would soon find a 'home away from home' on Waldo's fat
body. It takes some doing to get out of a hammock in a
hurry."
"They might sting him to death," protested Mrs.
Thackenbury.
"Waldo is one of those people who would be
enormously improved by death," said Clovis; "but if you
didn't want to go as far as that, you could have some wet
straw ready to hand, and set it alight under the hammock
at the same time that the fusee was thrown into the nest;
the smoke would keep all but the most militant of the
wasps just outside the stinging line, and as long as
Waldo remained within its protection he would escape
serious damage, and could be eventually restored to his
mother, kippered all over and swollen in places, but
still perfectly recognisable."
"His mother would be my enemy for life," said Mrs.
Thackenbury.
"That would be one greeting less to exchange at
Christmas," said Clovis.
THE DREAMER
IT was the season of sales. The august
establishment of Walpurgis and Nettlepink had lowered its
prices for an entire week as a concession to trade
observances, much as an Arch-duchess might protestingly
contract an attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory
reason that influenza was locally prevalent. Adela
Chemping, who considered herself in some measure superior
to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a
point of attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and
Nettlepink's.
"I'm not a bargain hunter," she said, "but I like to
go where bargains are."
Which showed that beneath her surface strength of
character there flowed a gracious undercurrent of human
weakness.
With a view to providing herself with a male escort
Mrs. Chemping had invited her youngest nephew to
accompany her on the first day of the shopping
expedition, throwing in the additionalallurement of a
cinematograph theatre and the prospect of light
refreshment. As Cyprian was not yet eighteen she hoped
he might not have reached that stage in masculine
development when parcel-carrying is looked on as a thing
abhorrent.
"Meet me just outside the floral department," she
wrote to him, "and don't be a moment later than eleven."
Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early
life the wondering look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who
sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and
invests the commonplace things of this world with
qualities unsuspected by plainer folk - the eyes of a
poet or a house agent. He was quietly dressed - that
sartorial quietude which frequently accompanies early
adolescence, and is usually attributed by novel-writers
to the influence of a widowed mother. His hair was
brushed back in a smoothness as of ribbonseaweed and
seamed with a narrow furrow that scarcely aimed at being
a parting. His aunt particularly noted this item of his
toilet when they met at the appointed rendezvous, because
he was standingwaiting for her bare-headed.
"Where is your hat?" she asked.
"I didn't bring one with me," he replied.
Adela Chemping was slightly scandalised.
"You are not going to be what they call a Nut, are
you?" she inquired with some anxiety, partly with the
idea that a Nut would be an extravagance which her
sister's small household would scarcely be justified in
incurring, partly, perhaps, with the instinctive
apprehension that a Nut, even in its embryo stage, would
refuse to carry parcels.
Cyprian looked at her with his wondering, dreamy
eyes.
"I didn't bring a hat," he said, "because it is such
a nuisance when one is shopping; I mean it is so awkward
if one meets anyone one knows and has to take one's hat
off when one's hands are full of parcels. If one hasn't
got a hat on one can't take it off."
Mrs. Chemping sighed with great relief; her worst
fear had been laid at rest.
"It is more orthodox to wear a hat," she observed,
and then turned her attention briskly to the business in
hand.
"We will go first to the table-linen counter," she
said, leading the way in that direction; "I should like
to look at some napkins."
The wondering look deepened in Cyprian's eyes as he
followed his aunt; he belonged to a generation that is
supposed to be over-fond of the role of mere spectator,
but looking at napkins that one did not mean to buy was a
pleasure beyond his comprehension. Mrs. Chemping held
one or two napkins up to the light and stared fixedly at
them, as though she half expected to find some
revolutionary cypher written on them in scarcely visible
ink; then she suddenly broke away in the direction of the
glassware department.
"Millicent asked me to get her a couple of decanters
if there were any going really cheap," she explained on
the way, "and I really do want a salad bowl. I can come
back to the napkins later on."
She handled and scrutinised a large number of
decanters and a long series of salad bowls, and finally
bought seven chrysanthemum vases.
"No one uses that kind of vase nowadays," she
informed Cyprian, "but they will do for presents next
Christmas."
Two sunshades that were marked down to a price that
Mrs. Chemping considered absurdly cheap were added to her
purchases.
"One of them will do for Ruth Colson; she is going
out to the Malay States, and a sunshade will always be
useful there. And I must get her some thin writing
paper. It takes up no room in one's baggage."
Mrs. Chemping bought stacks of writing paper; it was
so cheap, and it went so flat in a trunk or portmanteau.
She also bought a few envelopes - envelopes somehow
seemed rather an extragavance compared with notepaper.
"Do you think Ruth will like blue or grey paper?"
she asked Cyprian.
"Grey," said Cyprian, who had never met the lady in
question.
"Have you any mauve notepaper of this quality?"
Adela asked the assistant.
"We haven't any mauve," said the assistant, "but
we've two shades of green and a darker shade of grey."
Mrs. Chemping inspected the greens and the darker
grey, and chose the blue.
"Now we can have some lunch," she said.
Cyprian behaved in an exemplary fashion in the
refreshment department, and cheerfully accepted a fish
cake and a mince pie and a small cup of coffee as
adequate restoratives after two hours of concentrated
shopping. He was adamant, however, in resisting his
aunt's suggestion that a hat should be bought for him at
the counter where men's headwear was being disposed of at
temptingly reduced prices.
"I've got as many hats as I want at home," he said,
"and besides, it rumples one's hair so, trying them on."
Perhaps he was going to develop into a Nut after
all. It was a disquieting symptom that he left all the
parcels in charge of the cloak-room attendant.
"We shall be getting more parcels presently," he
said, "so we need not collect these till we have finished
our shopping."
His aunt was doubtfully appeased; some of the
pleasure and excitement of a shopping expedition seemed
to evaporate when one was deprived of immediate personal
contact with one's purchases.
"I'm going to look at those napkins again," she
said, as they descended the stairs to the ground floor.
"You need not come," she added, as the dreaming look in
the boy's eyes changed for a moment into one of mute
protest, "you can meet me afterwards in the cutlery
department; I've just remembered that I haven't a
corkscrew in the house that can be depended on."
Cyprian was not to be found in the cutlery
department when his aunt in due course arrived there, but
in the crush and bustle of anxious shoppers and busy
attendants it was an easy matter to miss anyone. It was
in the leather goods department some quarter of an hour
later that Adela Chemping caught sight of her nephew,
separated from her by a rampart of suit-cases and
portmanteaux and hemmed in by the jostling crush of human
beings that now invaded every corner of the great
shopping emporium. She was just in time to witness a
pardonable but rather embarrassing mistake on the part of
a lady who had wriggled her way with unstayable
determination towards the bareheaded Cyprian, and was now
breathlessly demanding the sale price of a handbag which
had taken her fancy.
"There now," exclaimed Adela to herself, "she takes
him for one of the shop assistants because he hasn't got
a hat on. I wonder it hasn't happened before."
Perhaps it had. Cyprian, at any rate, seemed
neither startled nor embarrassed by the error into which
the good lady had fallen. Examining the ticket on the
bag, he announced in a clear, dispassionate voice:
"Black seal, thirty-four shillings, marked down to
it is called out. In this case they would probably burst
into tears when their dish is mentioned. It would be a
heavenly picnic."
Mrs. Thackenbury was silent for a moment; she was
probably making a mental list of the people she would
like to invite to the Duke Humphrey picnic. Presently
she asked: "And that odious young man, Waldo Plubley, who
is always coddling himself - have you thought of anything
that one could do to him?" Evidently she was beginning
to see the possibilities of Nemesis Day.
"If there was anything like a general observance of
the festival," said Clovis, "Waldo would be in such
demand that you would have to bespeak him weeks
beforehand, and even then, if there were an east wind
blowing or a cloud or two in the sky he might be too
careful of his precious self to come out. It would be
rather jolly if you could lure him into a hammock in the
orchard, just near the spot where there is a wasps' nest
every summer. A comfortable hammock on a warm afternoon
would appeal to his indolent tastes, and then, when he
was getting drowsy, a lighted fusee thrown into the nest
would bring the wasps out in an indignant mass, and they
would soon find a 'home away from home' on Waldo's fat
body. It takes some doing to get out of a hammock in a
hurry."
"They might sting him to death," protested Mrs.
Thackenbury.
"Waldo is one of those people who would be
enormously improved by death," said Clovis; "but if you
didn't want to go as far as that, you could have some wet
straw ready to hand, and set it alight under the hammock
at the same time that the fusee was thrown into the nest;
the smoke would keep all but the most militant of the
wasps just outside the stinging line, and as long as
Waldo remained within its protection he would escape
serious damage, and could be eventually restored to his
mother, kippered all over and swollen in places, but
still perfectly recognisable."
"His mother would be my enemy for life," said Mrs.
Thackenbury.
"That would be one greeting less to exchange at
Christmas," said Clovis.
THE DREAMER
IT was the season of sales. The august
establishment of Walpurgis and Nettlepink had lowered its
prices for an entire week as a concession to trade
observances, much as an Arch-duchess might protestingly
contract an attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory
reason that influenza was locally prevalent. Adela
Chemping, who considered herself in some measure superior
to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a
point of attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and
Nettlepink's.
"I'm not a bargain hunter," she said, "but I like to
go where bargains are."
Which showed that beneath her surface strength of
character there flowed a gracious undercurrent of human
weakness.
With a view to providing herself with a male escort
Mrs. Chemping had invited her youngest nephew to
accompany her on the first day of the shopping
expedition, throwing in the additionalallurement of a
cinematograph theatre and the prospect of light
refreshment. As Cyprian was not yet eighteen she hoped
he might not have reached that stage in masculine
development when parcel-carrying is looked on as a thing
abhorrent.
"Meet me just outside the floral department," she
wrote to him, "and don't be a moment later than eleven."
Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early
life the wondering look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who
sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and
invests the commonplace things of this world with
qualities unsuspected by plainer folk - the eyes of a
poet or a house agent. He was quietly dressed - that
sartorial quietude which frequently accompanies early
adolescence, and is usually attributed by novel-writers
to the influence of a widowed mother. His hair was
brushed back in a smoothness as of ribbonseaweed and
seamed with a narrow furrow that scarcely aimed at being
a parting. His aunt particularly noted this item of his
toilet when they met at the appointed rendezvous, because
he was standingwaiting for her bare-headed.
"Where is your hat?" she asked.
"I didn't bring one with me," he replied.
Adela Chemping was slightly scandalised.
"You are not going to be what they call a Nut, are
you?" she inquired with some anxiety, partly with the
idea that a Nut would be an extravagance which her
sister's small household would scarcely be justified in
incurring, partly, perhaps, with the instinctive
apprehension that a Nut, even in its embryo stage, would
refuse to carry parcels.
Cyprian looked at her with his wondering, dreamy
eyes.
"I didn't bring a hat," he said, "because it is such
a nuisance when one is shopping; I mean it is so awkward
if one meets anyone one knows and has to take one's hat
off when one's hands are full of parcels. If one hasn't
got a hat on one can't take it off."
Mrs. Chemping sighed with great relief; her worst
fear had been laid at rest.
"It is more orthodox to wear a hat," she observed,
and then turned her attention briskly to the business in
hand.
"We will go first to the table-linen counter," she
said, leading the way in that direction; "I should like
to look at some napkins."
The wondering look deepened in Cyprian's eyes as he
followed his aunt; he belonged to a generation that is
supposed to be over-fond of the role of mere spectator,
but looking at napkins that one did not mean to buy was a
pleasure beyond his comprehension. Mrs. Chemping held
one or two napkins up to the light and stared fixedly at
them, as though she half expected to find some
revolutionary cypher written on them in scarcely visible
ink; then she suddenly broke away in the direction of the
glassware department.
"Millicent asked me to get her a couple of decanters
if there were any going really cheap," she explained on
the way, "and I really do want a salad bowl. I can come
back to the napkins later on."
She handled and scrutinised a large number of
decanters and a long series of salad bowls, and finally
bought seven chrysanthemum vases.
"No one uses that kind of vase nowadays," she
informed Cyprian, "but they will do for presents next
Christmas."
Two sunshades that were marked down to a price that
Mrs. Chemping considered absurdly cheap were added to her
purchases.
"One of them will do for Ruth Colson; she is going
out to the Malay States, and a sunshade will always be
useful there. And I must get her some thin writing
paper. It takes up no room in one's baggage."
Mrs. Chemping bought stacks of writing paper; it was
so cheap, and it went so flat in a trunk or portmanteau.
She also bought a few envelopes - envelopes somehow
seemed rather an extragavance compared with notepaper.
"Do you think Ruth will like blue or grey paper?"
she asked Cyprian.
"Grey," said Cyprian, who had never met the lady in
question.
"Have you any mauve notepaper of this quality?"
Adela asked the assistant.
"We haven't any mauve," said the assistant, "but
we've two shades of green and a darker shade of grey."
Mrs. Chemping inspected the greens and the darker
grey, and chose the blue.
"Now we can have some lunch," she said.
Cyprian behaved in an exemplary fashion in the
refreshment department, and cheerfully accepted a fish
cake and a mince pie and a small cup of coffee as
adequate restoratives after two hours of concentrated
shopping. He was adamant, however, in resisting his
aunt's suggestion that a hat should be bought for him at
the counter where men's headwear was being disposed of at
temptingly reduced prices.
"I've got as many hats as I want at home," he said,
"and besides, it rumples one's hair so, trying them on."
Perhaps he was going to develop into a Nut after
all. It was a disquieting symptom that he left all the
parcels in charge of the cloak-room attendant.
"We shall be getting more parcels presently," he
said, "so we need not collect these till we have finished
our shopping."
His aunt was doubtfully appeased; some of the
pleasure and excitement of a shopping expedition seemed
to evaporate when one was deprived of immediate personal
contact with one's purchases.
"I'm going to look at those napkins again," she
said, as they descended the stairs to the ground floor.
"You need not come," she added, as the dreaming look in
the boy's eyes changed for a moment into one of mute
protest, "you can meet me afterwards in the cutlery
department; I've just remembered that I haven't a
corkscrew in the house that can be depended on."
Cyprian was not to be found in the cutlery
department when his aunt in due course arrived there, but
in the crush and bustle of anxious shoppers and busy
attendants it was an easy matter to miss anyone. It was
in the leather goods department some quarter of an hour
later that Adela Chemping caught sight of her nephew,
separated from her by a rampart of suit-cases and
portmanteaux and hemmed in by the jostling crush of human
beings that now invaded every corner of the great
shopping emporium. She was just in time to witness a
pardonable but rather embarrassing mistake on the part of
a lady who had wriggled her way with unstayable
determination towards the bareheaded Cyprian, and was now
breathlessly demanding the sale price of a handbag which
had taken her fancy.
"There now," exclaimed Adela to herself, "she takes
him for one of the shop assistants because he hasn't got
a hat on. I wonder it hasn't happened before."
Perhaps it had. Cyprian, at any rate, seemed
neither startled nor embarrassed by the error into which
the good lady had fallen. Examining the ticket on the
bag, he announced in a clear, dispassionate voice:
"Black seal, thirty-four shillings, marked down to
- mental [´mentl]
a.精神的；心理的 (初中英语单词) - evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
- alight [ə´lait] a.燃着的 vi.下；降落 (初中英语单词)
- protection [prə´tekʃən] n.警戒；护照；通行证 (初中英语单词)
- measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- bargain [´bɑ:gin] n.买卖合同 v.议(价) (初中英语单词)
- reduction [ri´dʌkʃən] n.减少；缩小；降低 (初中英语单词)
- gracious [´greiʃəs] a.和蔼可亲的；任慈的 (初中英语单词)
- nephew [´nevju:, ´nɛfju] n.侄子；外甥 (初中英语单词)
- additional [ə´diʃənəl] a.附加的，额外的 (初中英语单词)
- prospect [´prɔspekt, prəs´pekt] n.景色；境界 v.勘察 (初中英语单词)
- visible [´vizəbəl] a.可见的；明显的 (初中英语单词)
- ribbon [´ribən] n.缎带；带子；色带 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
- anxiety [æŋ´zaiəti] n.挂念；渴望；焦虑的事 (初中英语单词)
- partly [´pɑ:tli] ad.部分地；不完全地 (初中英语单词)
- relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- generation [,dʒenə´reiʃən] n.发生；世代；同龄人 (初中英语单词)
- series [´siəri:z] n.连续；系列；丛书 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- assistant [ə´sistənt] n.助手；助理；助教 (初中英语单词)
- suggestion [sə´dʒestʃən] n.建议，提议；暗示 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- excitement [ik´saitmənt] n.兴奋；骚动；煽动 (初中英语单词)
- expedition [,ekspi´diʃən] n.远征；探险；迅速 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- witness [´witnis] n.见证人 vt.目击 (初中英语单词)
- picnic [´piknik] n.郊游 vi.(去)野餐 (高中英语单词)
- appeal [ə´pi:l] vi.&n.请求；呼吁；上诉 (高中英语单词)
- drowsy [´drauzi] a.困倦的；催眠的 (高中英语单词)
- perfectly [´pə:fiktli] ad.理想地；完美地 (高中英语单词)
- concession [kən´seʃən] n.让步；租界 (高中英语单词)
- nuisance [´nju:səns] n.损害；讨厌的人(事) (高中英语单词)
- comprehension [,kɔmpri´henʃən] n.理解；领悟 (高中英语单词)
- cheerfully [´tʃiəfuli] ad.高兴地，愉快地 (高中英语单词)
- counter [´kauntə] n.计算者；柜台；计算机 (高中英语单词)
- symptom [´simptəm] n.症状，症候 (高中英语单词)
- bustle [´bʌsəl] v.(使)匆忙 n.匆忙 (高中英语单词)
- futile [´fju:tail] a.无用的，无益的 (英语四级单词)
- odious [´əudiəs] a.可憎的；丑恶的 (英语四级单词)
- observance [əb´zə:vəns] n.遵守；惯例；仪式 (英语四级单词)
- hammock [´hæmək] n.吊床；圆丘 (英语四级单词)
- indignant [in´dignənt] a.义愤的，愤慨的 (英语四级单词)
- eventually [i´ventʃuəli] ad.最后，终于 (英语四级单词)
- swollen [´swəulən] swell的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- prevalent [´prevələnt] a.流行的；普遍的 (英语四级单词)
- commonplace [´kɔmənpleis] a.平凡的；常见的 (英语四级单词)
- furrow [´fʌrəu] n.沟 vt.犁；使起皱纹 (英语四级单词)
- parting [´pɑ:tiŋ] a.&n.分离(的) (英语四级单词)
- extravagance [iks´trævigəns] n.奢侈；极端 (英语四级单词)
- briskly [´briskli] ad.轻快地；活泼地 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- evaporate [i´væpəreit] vt.蒸发；消失 (英语四级单词)
- influenza [,influ´enzə] n.流行性感冒 (英语六级单词)
- allurement [ə´ljuəmənt] n.诱惑物；魅力 (英语六级单词)
- dreamer [´dri:mə] n.做梦的人；梦想者 (英语六级单词)
- seaweed [´si:wi:d] n.海草，海藻 (英语六级单词)
- embryo [´embriəu] n.胚胎；萌芽时期 (英语六级单词)
- orthodox [´ɔ:θədɔks] a.正统的；正统的；习惯的 (英语六级单词)
- doubtfully [´dautfuli] ad.怀疑地，可疑地 (英语六级单词)
- rampart [´ræmpɑ:t] n.壁垒 vt.防护 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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