And then he would make up for it next afternoon, that conscientious
Englishman; which was fair enough to our parents, but not to us. And
then what extra severity, as interest for the beggarly loan of half an
afternoon! What rappings on ink-stained knuckles with a beastly, hard,
round, polished, heavy-wooded, business-like English ruler!
It was our way in those days to think that everything English was
beastly--an expression our parents thought we were much too fond
of using.
But perhaps we were not without some excuse for this unpardonable
sentiment. For there was _another_ English family in Passy--the
Prendergasts, an older family than ours--that is, the parents (and
uncles and aunts) were middle-aged, the grandmother dead, and the
children grown up. We had not the honor of their acquaintance. But
whether that was their misfortune and our fault (or _vice versa_) I
cannot tell. Let us hope the former.
They were of an opposite type to ours, and, though I say it, their type
was a singularly unattractive one; perhaps it may have been the original
of those caricatures of our compatriots by which French comic artists
have sought to avenge Waterloo. It was stiff, haughty, contemptuous.
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