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212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

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190 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP<br />

Philip has had a bad dinner yesterday (and happens to remember<br />

it), he growls, grumbles, nay, I daresay, uses the most blasphemous<br />

language against the cook, against the waiters, against the steward,<br />

against the committee, against the whole society of the club where<br />

he has been dining. If Philip has met an organ-girl with pretty<br />

eyes and a monkey in the street, he has grinned and wondered over<br />

the monkey; he has wagged his head, and sung all the organ's<br />

tunes ; he has discovered that the little girl is the most ravishing<br />

beauty eyes ever looked on, and that her scoundrelly Savoyard<br />

father is most likely an Alpine miscreant who has bartered away<br />

his child to a pedlar of the beggarly cheesy valleys, who has sold<br />

her to a friend qui fait la traite des hurdigurdies, and has disposed<br />

of her in England. If he has to discourse on the poem, pamphlet,<br />

magazine article—it is written by the greatest genius, or the<br />

greatest numskull, that the world now exhibits. He write ! A<br />

man who makes fire rhyme with Marire ! This vale of tears and<br />

world which we inhabit does not contain such an idiot. Or have<br />

you seen Dobbins's poem ? Agnes, mark my words for it, there is<br />

a genius in Dobbins which some day will show what I have always<br />

surmised, what I have always imagined possible, what I have always<br />

felt to be more than probable, what, by George ! I feel to be<br />

perfectly certain, and any man is a humbug who contradicts it, and<br />

a malignant miscreant, and the world is full of fellows who will<br />

never give another man credit ; and I swear that to recognise and<br />

feel merit in poetry, painting, music, rope-dancing, anything, is the<br />

greatest delight and joy of my existence. I say—what was I<br />

saying ?"<br />

" You were saying, Philip, that you love to recognise the merits<br />

of all men whom you see," says gentle Agnes; "and I believe<br />

you do."<br />

"Yes!" cries Phil, tossing about the fair locks. "I think I<br />

do. Thank Heaven, I do. I know fellows who can do many<br />

things better than I do—everything better than I do."<br />

" Oh, Philip !" sighs the lady.<br />

" But I don't hate 'em for it."<br />

" You never hated any one, sir. You are too brave ! Can you<br />

fancy Philip hating any one, mamma ?"<br />

Mamma is writing: "Mr. and Mrs. TALBOT TWYSDEN request<br />

the honour of Admiral and Mrs. DAVIS LOCKER'S company at<br />

dinner on Thursday the so-and-so." " Philip what ?" says mamma,<br />

looking up from her card. " Philip hating any one ! Philip eating<br />

any one ! Philip ! we have a little dinner on the 24th. We shall<br />

ask your father to dine. We must not have too many of the family.<br />

Come in afterwards, please."

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