"
Drawing-room furniture indeed! When one considers the buildings and
munition dumps, the live and rolling stock, the jungles and forests
in that half-charted territory; when one considers that even the
mere wastepaper basket by the writing-desk (and it _does_ look a bit
battered, that wastepaper basket) is sometimes the tin helmet under
which Richard defies the frightfulness of LARS PORSENA, and sometimes
a necessary stage property for Priscilla's two favourite dramatic
recitations
"He plunged with a delighted _scweam_
Into a bowl of clotted cweam,"
and
"This is Mr. Piggy Wee,
With tail so pink and curly,
And when I say, 'Good mornin', pig,'
He answers _vewwy_ surly,
Oomph! Oomph!'"
and sometimes the hutch that harbours a cotton-wool creation supposed
to be a white rabbit, and stated by the owner to be "munsin' and
munsin' and munsin' a carrot"--when, I say, I consider all these
things I anticipate that the proceedings of the Reparation Commission
will be something like this:--
_He (looking a little ruefully at the round music-stool)_.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25