"Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that Godforsaken place?"
"Wrestling with myself," said Sam with simple dignity.
Sir Mallaby's agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was answering.
"We should be glad to meet you…. Wrestling, eh! Well, I like a boy to be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn't all athletics. Don't forget that. Life is real! Life is … how does it go, Miss Milliken?"
Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit when called upon to recite.
"Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and time is fleeting. And our hearts though stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footsteps on the sands of Time. Let us then …" said Miss Milliken respectfully … "be up and doing…."
"All right, all right, all right!" said Sir Mallaby. "I don't want it all. Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to you about that when I've finished answering these infernal letters. Where was I? 'We should be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an appointment…' Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not Margate, while you are about it?"
"Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my mood. It was gray and dark, and it rained all the time, and the sea slunk about in the distance like some baffled beast…."
He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir
Mallaby's attention had returned to the letter.
"Oh, what's the good of answering the dashed thing at all?" said Sir Mallaby. "Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well that they have got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than Goole, and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool, Eggshaw, Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters, twelve of them in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to marry him, and he comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The girl is suing him for ten thousand."