[Illustration: "I FELT GRATEFUL TO ADORATION."]
And then he was the first funny man I had ever met. What a gift it is!
He was always funny when he tried to be, whether one laughed with him or
at him, and I loved him for it. Nothing on earth is more pathetically
pitiable than the funny man when he still tries and succeeds no longer.
The moment Lintot's vein was exhausted, he had the sense to leave off
and begin to cry, which was still funny; and then I would jump out of
his clothes and into his bed and be asleep in a second, with the tears
still trickling down his little nose--and even that was funny!
But next morning he was stern and alert and indefatiguable, as though
gin and poetry and conjugal love had never been, and fun were a
capital crime.
Uncle Ibbetson thought highly of him as an architect, but not otherwise;
he simply made use of him.
"He's a terrible little snob, of course, and hasn't got an _h_ in his
head" (as if _that_ were a capital crime); "but he's very clever--look
at that campanile--and then he's cheap, my boy, cheap."
There were several fine houses in fine parks not very far from Ibbetson
Hall; but although Uncle Ibbetson appeared in name and wealth and social
position to be on a par with their owners, he was not on terms of
intimacy with any of them, or even of acquaintance, as far as I know,
and spoke of them with contempt, as barbarians--people with whom he had
nothing in common.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91