Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/173

Rh when I attended an afternoon meeting of the ladies' "Onwards and Upwards Club," which, I had been told, would be devoted to a study of the English Lake poets, and where, it having been discovered that I read rather well, I had consented to favour the assembly with some of the more significant bits from these bards. The meeting, I regret to say, after a formal enough opening was diverted from its original purpose, the time being occupied in a quite heated discussion of a so-called "Dutch Supper" the Klondike person had given the evening before, the same having been attended, it seemed, by the husbands of at least three of those present, who had gone incognito, as it were. At no time during the ensuing two hours was there a moment that seemed opportune for the introduction of some of our noblest verse.

And so, by often painful stages, did my education progress. At the country club I played golf with Mr. Jackson. At social affairs I appeared with the Flouds. I played bridge. I danced the more dignified dances. And, though there was no proper church in the town—only dissenting chapels, Methodist, Presbyterian, and such outlandish persuasions—I attended services each Sabbath, and more than once had tea with what at home would have been the vicar of the parish.

It was now, when I had begun to feel a bit at ease in my queer foreign environment, that Mr. Belknap-Jackson broached his ill-starred plan for amateur theatricals. At the first suggestion of this I was immensely taken with the idea, suspecting that he would perhaps present "Hamlet," a part to which I have devoted long and intelligent study and to which I feel that I could bring something which has