VIII
IN WHICH SOCRATES ATTACKS THE HELMET AND THE BATTLE-AX
“Marie came to see us at our home next morning and began to cry as soon as she had sat down in the library. The thing I had looked for had come to pass. Her grandfather had dropped Harry from his list, and warned him to keep off the rag-carpet. There was to be no more prancing around in the ‘toot-coach’ and the ‘Harry-cart,’ as he called them, for Marie. In his view it was the surest means of getting to perdition. Harry was an idler, and he had always found that an idle brain was the devil’s workshop. Marie might be polite to the young man, but she must keep her 85 side of the road and see that there was always plenty of room between them.
“‘He’s so hateful,’ Marie said of her grandfather. ‘He made such a fuss about our getting a crest that we’ve a perfect right to! Mama had to give it up.’
“‘What! Do you mean to tell me that you have no crest!’ I inquired, anxiously.
“‘We have one, but we cannot use it; our hands are tied,’ was her sorrowful answer.
“‘I’m astonished. Why, everybody is going to have a crest in Pointview.
“‘The other day I suggested to Bridget Maloney, our pretty chambermaid, that she ought to have the Maloney crest on her letter-heads.
“‘“What’s that?” says Bridget.