FORE:
FORE:Reuben struck his horse with the whip, and the[Pg 185] animal sprang forward. A man who had been trying to climb into the gig, fell off, and was nearly trampled on. Reuben flogged his way through the pack, a shower of missiles hurtling round him, while his ears burned with the abuse which had once been his badge of pride, but now in the hour of defeat smote him with a sick sense of impotence and degradation. "Ben the Gorilla! Ben the Gorilla!"
FORE:The Fair had moved still further with the times. The merrygo-round organ played "Bluebell," "Dolly Grey," and "The Absent-Minded Beggar," the chief target in the shooting-gallery was Kruger, with Cronje and De Wet as subordinates, and the Panorama showed[Pg 429] Queen Victoria's funeral. The fighting booth was hidden away still further, and dancing now only started at nightfall. There were some new shows, too. The old-fashioned thimble-rigging had given place to a modern swindle with tickets and a dial; instead of the bearded woman or the pig-faced boy, one put a penny in the slot and saw a lady undressto a certain point. There was a nigger in a fur-lined coat lecturing on a patent medicine, while the stalls themselves were of a more utilitarian nature, selling whips and trousers and balls of string, instead of the ribbon and gingerbread fairings bought by lovers in days of old."You needn't tell me that."
THREE:"Potatoes," said Lardner, "potatoesif farmers 'ud only grow potatoes and not think so much of grain and rootses, we shudn't hear of so many of 'em going bust.""He's more likely to amuse us," said Richard; "he's a character, and I shall enjoy studying him for the first time from an unbiassed view-point."
THREE:Supper was a very gay mealthe gayest there had ever been at Odiam. Rose laughed and talked, as at Starvecrow, and soon her husband and the boys were laughing with her. Some of the things she said were rather daring, and Caro had only a dim idea of what she meant, but Rose's eyes rolling mischievously under the long lashes, and the tip of her tongue showing between her lips, gave her words a devilish bite even if only half understood. Somehow the whole atmosphere of the Odiam kitchen was changedit was like the lifting of a curtain, the glimpsing of a life where all was gay, where love and ambition and all solemn things were the stuff of laughter."Noit's just something one enjoys, same as cakes and bull's-eyes. I've kissed dozens of people in my time and meant nothing by it, nor they either. It's because you've no experience of these things that you think such a lot of 'em. They're quite unimportant really, and it's silly to make a fuss."
