If I thought the masculine tendency of our present-day
girls was likely to go much further, I might consent to the effemination
of Jack simply to secure his comfort as a married man of the future; but
I don't think that, and in consequence Jack is going to be brought up as
a boy, and not as a girl. The football goes."
This remark was another indication of Jarley's depression. He rarely
combated Mrs. Jarley's ideas, and when he did, and with a certain air of
irritation, it was invariably a sign of his low mental state.
"When you say that the football goes, do you mean that it stays?"
queried Mrs. Jarley, who was a little tired herself, and could not,
therefore, resist the temptation to indulge in a bit of innocent
repartee.
"I do," said Jarley, shortly. "Goes is sometimes a synonym for stays.
When I feel stronger I may invent a new language, which will have fewer
absurdities than English as she is spoke."
And with this Jarley went to bed, and slept the sleep of the just man
who is truly weary.
If he had foreseen the result of his football investment it is doubtful
if his sleep would have been so tranquil--unless, perchance, he were
fashioned after that rare pattern of mankind, Louis XVI. of France, who
called for his six or seven course dinner with a mob of howling,
bloodthirsty Parisians in his antechamber, and who on the eve of his
execution slept well, despite his knowledge that within fifteen hours
his head would in all probability be lopped off by the guillotine to
gratify the lust for blood which was the chief characteristic of the
promoters of the first French Republic.
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