Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 1.pdf/267

Rh "Such a fiasco!" said Mrs. Mergle.

"The Vicar assured me," said Lady Hammergallow. "'The man I have staying with me is a musical genius,' he said. His very words."

"His ears must be burning anyhow," said Tommy Rathbone Slater.

"I was trying to keep him Quiet," said Mrs. Jehoram. "By humouring him. And do you know the things he said to me—there!"

"The thing he played," said Mr. Wilmerdings, "—I must confess I did not like to charge him to his face. But really! It was merely drifting."

"Just fooling with a fiddle, eigh?" said George Harringay. "Well I thought it was beyond me. So much of your fine music is"

"Oh, George!" said the younger Miss Pirbright.

"The Vicar was a bit on, too—to judge by his tie," said Mr. Rathbone Slater. "It's a dashed rummy go. Did you notice how he fussed after the genius?"

"One has to be so very careful," said the very eldest Miss Papaver.

"He told me he is love with the Vicar's housemaid!" said Mrs. Jehoram. "I almost laughed in his face."

"The Vicar ought never to have brought him here," said Mrs. Rathbone Slater with decision.

§ 38

, ingloriously, ended the Angel's first and last appearance in Society. Vicar and Angel returned to the Vicarage; crestfallen black figures in the bright 235