Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/361

 rugs, and had waked now and then to his presence and a hot argument.

"Why don't you like Dickens, Murray?"

"Oh, his people, Anne—clowns."

"They're not!"

"Boors; beggars." He made a gesture of distaste.

"They're darlings—Mark Tapley and Ruth Pinch. Murray, if I had a beefsteak I'd make a beefsteak pie."

There was more of pathos in this than Murray imagined. There had been no beef on the Merryman table for many moons.

"Murray, did you ever eat tripe?"

"My dear child"

"It sounds dee-licious when Toby Veck has it on a cold morning. And there's the cricket on the hearth and the teakettle singing. I'd love to hear a kettle sing like that, Murray; wouldn't you?"

But Murray wouldn't. He had the same kind of mind as Amy and Ethel. He did not like robust and hearty things or robust and hearty people. He wore a corset to keep his hips small, and stood up at teas and receptions with an almost military carriage. Of course he had to sit down at dinners, but he sat very straight. He, too, had family portraits and family silver, and he lived scrupulously up to them. His fortunes, unlike the Merrymans', 355