A SUGGESTION.
When I mentioned Mr. Rogers's advertisement to my grandfather he buried himself in the past, and by great effort of memory re-called his career at Chislehurst. It began to be a puzzle to him that time, which flew so fast where he was concerned, should drag so extremely with the rest of the world.
"Chislehurst! Why that's twenty years ago, or near it," he said. "The girl must be fifty if she's a day. No judge would grant her a hearing at all. Breach of promise indeed! But we're perfectly safe, they wouldn't recognise me if I walked into the Eight Bells to-morrow."
With fortunes to some extent impaired we set off for Rose Cottage, near Salisbury. Grandpapa had forgotten all about the "Automatic Postcard Company," but I reminded him of the affair, and he went to a meeting of shareholders and said some nasty things, and was cheered by the other victims. Of course we lost all the money he had put in.
And now, in the quiet country, my grandfather made his one solitary effort towards reformation. It lasted three weeks, and ended in failure, and a run up to town without me.
But grandpapa did try all he knew to be good. He lived a blameless life, kept early hours, became a practical teetotaler, played a little lawn-tennis at the vicarage, and went to church twice every Sunday. I think he expected too much, and was too hopeful.
He said on one occasion:
"If heaven don't take pity on me now, and put a spoke in the New Scheme, then I shall say Providence is simply played out. Look at the life I'm leading. Look at the way I talk; never a strong expression. I helped a lame woman across the road yesterday. Is that to count for nothing? One cigar a day, early hours, no liquor, no language, no flirtation--why, if I was on my death-bed I couldn't be leading a more insipid life. It must tell in the long run."
But he only got younger and handsomer. The early hours and exercise at lawn-tennis did wonders. Men do not alter much between thirty and forty as a rule, but grandpapa began to get absolutely boyish. Half the pretty girls in the place were in love with him. Everybody thought he was younger than even the New Scheme made him appear.
I felt all along that he was not conducting his reformation on right lines, for what hope of success could be expected when the entire structure of his life stood on foundations of falsehood?