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Page 32

"Where is Africa?" asked Austin, munching a leaf.

"There!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte. "That's Austin all over. He'll talk
by the hour together about a lot of outlandish nonsense that no
sensible person ever heard of, and all the time he doesn't even know
where Africa is upon the map. What is to be done with such a boy?"

"Well, I think we'll postpone the question of his teaching in the
Sunday-school, at all events," remarked the vicar, who began to feel
rather sorry that he had ever suggested it. "It's more than probable
that his ideas would be over the children's heads, and come into
collision with what they heard in church. Well, now I must be going.
You'll think over that little matter we were speaking of?" he said, as
he took a neighbourly leave of his parishioner and ally.

"Indeed I will, and I'll write to my bankers to-night," replied that
lady cordially.

Then the vicar ambled across the lawn, and Austin accompanied him, as
in duty bound, to the garden gate. Meanwhile, Aunt Charlotte leant
comfortably back in her wicker chair, absorbed in pleasant meditation.
The repairs to the roof would, no doubt, run into a little money, but
the vicar's tip about this wonderful company for extracting gold from
sea-water made up for any anxiety she might otherwise have experienced
upon that score. What a kind, good man he was--and _so_ clever in
business matters, which, of course, were out of her range altogether.
She took the prospectus out of her pocket, and ran her eyes over it
again. Capital, �500,000, in shares of �100 each. Solicitors, Messrs
Somebody Something & Co., Fetter Lane, E.C. Bankers, The Shoreditch &
Houndsditch Amalgamated Banking Corporation, St Mary Axe. Acquisition
of machinery, so much. Cost of working, so much. Estimated
returns--something perfectly enormous. It all looked wonderful, quite
wonderful. She again determined to write to her bankers that very
evening before dinner.

"You're going to the theatre to-night, aren't you, Austin?" she said,
as he returned from seeing Mr Sheepshanks courteously off the
premises. "I want you to post a letter for me on your way. Post it at
the Central Office, so as to be sure it catches the night mail. It's a
business letter of importance."

"All right, auntie," he replied, arranging his trouser so that it
should fall gracefully over his wooden leg.

"And I do wish, Austin, that you'd behave rather more like other
people when Mr Sheepshanks comes to see us. There really is no
necessity for talking to him in the way you do. Of course it was a
great compliment, his asking you to take a class in the Sunday-school,
though I could have told him that he couldn't possibly have made an
absurder choice, and you might very well have contented yourself with
regretting your utter unfitness for such a post without exposing your
ignorance in the way you did. The idea of telling a clergyman, too,
that the Book of Genesis was too improper for boys to read, when he
had just been recommending it! I thought you'd have had more respect
for his position, whatever silly notions you may have yourself."

"I do respect the vicar; he's quite a nice little thing," replied
Austin, in a conciliatory tone. "And of course he thinks just what a
vicar ought to think, and I suppose what all vicars do think. But as
I'm not a vicar myself I don't see that I am bound to think as they
do."

"You a vicar, indeed!" sniffed Aunt Charlotte. "A remarkable sort of
vicar you'd make, and pretty sermons you'd preach if you had the
chance. What time does this performance of yours begin to-night?"

"At eight, I believe."

"Well, then, I'll just go in and tell cook to let us have dinner a
quarter of an hour earlier than usual," said Aunt Charlotte, as she
folded up her work. "The omnibus from the 'Peacock' will get you into
town in plenty of time, and the walk back afterwards will do you
good."

* * * * *

The town in question was about a couple of miles from the village
where Austin lived--a clean, cheerful, prosperous little borough, with
plenty of good shops, a commodious theatre, several churches and
chapels, and a fine market. Dinner was soon disposed of, and as the
omnibus which plied between the two places clattered and rattled along
at a good speed--having to meet the seven-fifty down-train at the
railway station--he was able to post his aunt's precious letter and
slip into his stall in the dress-circle before the curtain rose. The
orchestra was rioting through a composition called 'The Clang o' the
Wooden Shoon,' as an appropriate introduction to a tragedy the scene
of which was laid in Nineveh; the house seemed fairly full, and the
air was heavy with that peculiar smell, a sort of doubtfully aromatic
stuffiness, which is so grateful to the nostrils of playgoers. Austin
gazed around him with keen interest. He had not been inside a theatre
for years, and the vivid description that Mr Buskin had given him of
the show he was about to witness filled him with pleasurable
anticipation. To all intents and purposes, the experience that awaited
him was something entirely new; how, he wondered, would it fit into
his scheme of life? What room would there be, in his idealistic
philosophy, for the stage?

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Sun 21st Dec 2025, 22:34

Austin and His Friends by Frederic H. Balfour