“Oh, all sorts of funny people. We all gathered round him under the great sycamore tree, and he kept us in peals of laughter for an hour.”
“Tell me, please, some of the characters he took off.”
“I can remember two especially. One of them was a drunkard, and the other was a hypocrite. In taking off the drunkard he called himself ‘Mr Adolphus Swillerly.’ You never heard anything more amusing in your life.”
“And the hypocrite?” asked Walter, but with less of amusement in his tone.
“Ah, I think that was better still! He assumed the character of ‘Simon Batter-text;’ and he mimicked his preaching, and his praying, and his sighs, and his ‘ahmens’ in a wonderful way. It really was perfect. I’m so sorry you were not there, you would have so thoroughly enjoyed it.”
There was a pause, and a general silence, for the attention of the rest of the company had been drawn to the subject and the speakers.
“Surely you don’t see any harm in a little fun like that?” asked the young lady in some dismay, as she noticed that Walter’s face and manner were troubled as he hesitated in his reply.
All eyes were on him. What should he say? He turned very red; and then, having helped himself to a glass of wine, he said, carelessly, and with a short, merry laugh, “Harm! oh, of course not! The man meant no harm; he didn’t attack individuals. All the better if he made drunkenness and hypocrisy ridiculous.—Don’t you think so, Amos?”
For a moment his brother hesitated, for every eye was directed towards him. No one spoke; not a knife nor fork clattered.
“Well, my boy,” said his father, “let us have your opinion.”