The House on the Beach | Page 8

doses, Annette
induced her father to signal to Crickledon his readiness to go and see
the lodgings. No sooner had he done it than he said, "What on earth
made us wait all this time here? I'm hungry, my dear; I want supper."
"That is because you have had a disappointment. I know you, papa,"
said Annette.
"Yes, it's rather a damper about old Mart Tinman," her father assented.
"Or else I have n't recovered the shock of smashing that glass, and visit
it on him. But, upon my honour, he's my only friend in England, I have
n't a single relative that I know of, and to come and find your only
friend making a donkey of himself, is enough to make a man think of
eating and drinking."
Annette murmured reproachfully: "We can hardly say he is our only
friend in England, papa, can we?"
"Do you mean that young fellow? You'll take my appetite away if you
talk of him. He's a stranger. I don't believe he's worth a penny. He owns
he's what he calls a journalist."
These latter remarks were hurriedly exchanged at the threshold of
Crickledon's house.
"It don't look promising," said Mr. Smith.
"I didn't recommend it," said Crickledon.
"Why the deuce do you let your lodgings, then?"

"People who have come once come again."
"Oh! I am in England," Annette sighed joyfully, feeling at home in
some trait she had detected in Crickledon.
CHAPTER III
The story of the shattered chiwal-glass and the visit of Tinman's old
schoolmate fresh from Australia, was at many a breakfast-table before.
Tinman heard a word of it, and when he did he had no time to spare for
such incidents, for he was reading to his widowed sister Martha, in an
impressive tone, at a tolerably high pitch of the voice, and with a
suppressed excitement that shook away all things external from his
mind as violently as it agitated his body. Not the waves without but the
engine within it is which gives the shock and tremor to the crazy
steamer, forcing it to cut through the waves and scatter them to spray;
and so did Martin Tinman make light of the external attack of the card
of VAN DIEMEN SMITH, and its pencilled line: "An old chum of
yours, eh, matey? "Even the communication of Phippun & Co.
concerning the chiwal- glass, failed to divert him from his particular
task. It was indeed a public duty; and the chiwal-glass, though
pertaining to it, was a private business. He that has broken the glass, let
that man pay for it, he pronounced--no doubt in simpler fashion, being
at his ease in his home, but with the serenity of one uplifted. As to the
name VAN DIEMEN SMITH, he knew it not, and so he said to himself
while accurately recollecting the identity of the old chum who alone of
men would have thought of writing eh, matey?
Mr. Van Diemen Smith did not present the card in person. "At
Crickledon's," he wrote, apparently expecting the bailiff of the town to
rush over to him before knowing who he was.
Tinman was far too busy. Anybody can read plain penmanship or print,
but ask anybody not a Cabinet Minister or a Lord-in-Waiting to read
out loud and clear in a Palace, before a Throne. Oh! the nature of
reading is distorted in a trice, and as Tinman said to his worthy sister:
"I can do it, but I must lose no time in preparing myself." Again, at a

reperusal, he informed her: "I must habituate myself." For this purpose
he had put on the suit overnight.
The articulation of faultless English was his object. His sister Martha
sat vice-regally to receive his loyal congratulations on the illustrious
marriage, and she was pensive, less nervous than her brother from not
having to speak continuously, yet somewhat perturbed. She also had
her task, and it was to avoid thinking herself the Person addressed by
her suppliant brother, while at the same time she took possession of the
scholarly training and perfect knowledge of diction and rules of
pronunciation which would infallibly be brought to bear on him in the
terrible hour of the delivery of the Address. It was no small task
moreover to be compelled to listen right through to the end of the
Address, before the very gentlest word of criticism was allowed. She
did not exactly complain of the renewal of the rehearsal: a fatigue can
be endured when it is a joy. What vexed her was her failing memory for
the points of objection, as in her imagined High Seat she conceived
them; for, in painful truth, the instant her brother had finished she
entirely lost her acuteness of ear, and with that her recollection: so