"Well, we did go in twice today, although it is supposed to be a bad thing to do. Somehow I never can resist it myself and naturally I don"t expect the girls to resist what I can"t myself," said Zebedee.
"How was the water; pretty warm?"
"Oh, fine this morning before breakfast but rather brillig this afternoon," answered Dum.
"Brillig?"
"Yes, brillig! Don"t you know your Alice?
""Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.""
And then a strange thing happened. Before Dum got half through her quotation Miss c.o.x"s face was suffused with blushes, and Mr. Gordon first looked pained and then determined and when he answered he spoke to Dum but he looked at Miss c.o.x.
"Well, I don"t know my Alice as well as I might, but I have read it and re-read it and think it a most amusing book. I don"t remember that strange verse, however,---- Do you know, Miss Dum, I used to be such a silly a.s.s as to think there was nothing amusing in Alice in Wonderland, and once a long time ago I fell out with the very best friend I ever had in the world because I said the Lobster Quadrille was the kind of thing that no one but a child could find anything funny in? And she thought differently, and before we knew it we were at it hammer and tongs, and both of us said things we did not really mean (at least I did not mean them)----"
"Neither did I, Bob," said Miss c.o.x, frankly. I certainly liked Miss c.o.x for the way she spoke. She was what Tweedles calls a "perfect gentleman."
"And what is more, Jinny, the Lobster Quadrille is my favourite poem now," and Mr. Gordon looked very boyish, "or it might be unless you think the charming bit Miss Dum has just recited is better."
"How do you like this?" said Dum, rather bent on mischief I fancied:
""In winter when the fields are white, I sing this song for your delight--
In spring, when woods are getting green, I"ll try and tell you what I mean.
In summer, when the days are long, Perhaps you"ll understand the song.
In autumn, when the leaves are brown, Take pen and ink and write it down.
I sent a message to the fish: I told them, "This is what I wish."
The little fishes of the sea, sent an answer back to me.
The little fishes" answer was, "We cannot do it, Sir, because----"
I sent to them again to say, "It will be better to obey."
The fishes answered with a grin, "Why, what a temper you are in!"
I told them once, I told them twice; They would not listen to advice.
I took a kettle, large and new, Fit for the deed I had to do.
My heart went hop, my heart went thump; I filled the kettle at the pump.
Then someone came to me and said, "The little fishes are in bed."
I said to him, I said it plain, "Then you must wake them up again."
I said it very loud and clear; I went and shouted in his ear.
But he was very stiff and proud; He said, "You need not shout so loud!"
And he was very proud and stiff, He said, "I"ll go and wake them, if----"
I took a corkscrew from the shelf; I went to wake them up myself.
And when I found the door was locked, I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked.
And when I found the door was shut, I tried to turn the handle, but----""
Dum recited this poem with fervor and great elocutionary effects and simply convulsed the crowd. The whole thing was said directly to Mr.
Gordon and the naughty girl seemed to have some personal meaning when she said, "My heart went hop, my heart went thump," and when she ended up with a hopeless wail, "I tried to turn the handle, but----," Mr.
Gordon actually went to Miss c.o.x, as we arose from the supper table, drew her hand within his arm and deliberately led her out on the beach, and in plain hearing of all of us, said:
"The door isn"t shut for good, is it, Jinny?"
And we heard her answer: "No, Bob, not if you "pull and push and kick and knock.""
Well, Bob certainly did "pull and push and kick and knock." I have never imagined a more persistent lover. He seemed to be trying to catch even for all he had lost in those seventeen years. He told Zebedee that after the foolish quarrel he and Miss c.o.x had had on that wet, wet picnic, he had been called home by the financial disaster of his father, and while he knew he had been hard-headed in the affair, he felt she had been unreasonable, too, in demanding that he should agree with her about the absurd poem in Alice in Wonderland; and so had left the University without trying to right matters. Then when he had realized the tremendous difficulty his family was in, and found that not only would he have to go immediately to work but that his mother and sister would be dependent on his exertions, he felt that it was on the whole best that he and Miss c.o.x should separate. The engagement was already broken and he went off to his long and up-hill work saddened and forlorn; and Miss c.o.x, rather embittered by the experience, feeling that she had been hasty and exacting but too proud to make a move towards a reconciliation, had spent all the long years in vain regrets.
"Well, I hope they will be very happy," sighed Dum when we were discussing the matter while we lay on our closely packed cots the first night of Mr. Gordon"s visit. "It does seem terribly unromantic for the separation to have been caused by the Lobster Quadrille."
"It might have been a permanent separation if it had been just plain lobster, "specially in cans," said funny Mary Flannagan.
"Didn"t Miss c.o.x look sweet in that blue dress? I thought she was almost pretty but maybe it was the love-light in her eyes," sentimentalized Annie Pore.
"Isn"t it a pity they are so old?" deplored Dee. "His hair is real grey."
"It"s trouble that has done it," said Mary. "I wondered, Dum, you didn"t get off that verse on him about the voice of the lobster. Maybe that would have been too personal:
""Tis the voice of the lobster, I heard him declare, "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
As a duck with his eyelids, so he with his nose, Trims his belt and his b.u.t.tons and turns out his toes."
It would have been rather personal because Mr. Gordon"s hair does look rather sugared and certainly Miss c.o.x has baked him pretty brown."
"What do you s"pose your Cousin Park Garnett would say, Page, if she knew that our chaperone for the house party had gone and got herself as good as engaged the very second evening?" laughed Dee.
"I fancy with her characteristic elegance she would exclaim: "Oh, you chaperone!""
CHAPTER VIII.
LETTERS.
To Dr. James Allison from Page Allison.