More Dolly Dialogues/The Curate's Bump
More Dolly
Dialogues
by
Anthony Hope
THE CURATE'S BUMP
"WHAT is the harm," I asked at lunch, "in being fat?" And I looked round the table.
I had led up to this subject because something which fell from Mrs. Hilary Musgrave the other day led me to suppose that I might appear to be growing stouter than I used to be.
"It doesn't matter in a man," said Nellie Phaeton.
"That," I observed, "is merely part of the favourite pretence of your sex."
"And what's that, Mr. Carter?" asked Dolly.
"That you're indifferent to a pleasing appearance in man. It won't go down."
"It would, if you ate less," said Dolly, wilfully misunderstanding me.
"Napoleon was fat," remarked Archie. He is studying history.
"Mamma is rather fat," said Lady Jane, breaking a long silence. Her tone seemed to imply that it was a graceful concession on the Dowager's part.
"I shouldn't say you ever had much of a figure," observed Dolly, gazing at me dispassionately.
"Mamma," resumed Lady Jane, with an amiable desire to give me useful information, "drinks nothing but lemonade. I make it hot for her, and"
"I should like to do that," said I longingly.
"It's the simplest thing in the world," cried Lady Jane. "You can do it for yourself. You just take"
"A pretty girl," I murmured absently. "I—I beg your pardon. Lady Jane. You see, Miss Phaeton is opposite, and my thoughts wandered."
"It's no use talkin' sensibly where you are," said Miss Nellie very severely, as she rose from the table.
"Won't anyone have any rice pudding?" asked Archie appealingly.
"If I were a camel, I would," said I.
"Why a camel, Mr. Carter?" asked Lady Jane.
"A camel, Lady Jane, is so constructed that it could keep one exclusively for rice pudding."
"One what, Mr. Carter?"
I strolled to the window, where Dolly stood looking out.
"Dear Jane!" said Dolly. "She never sees anything."
"I wish there were more like her," said I cordially. "She doesn't inherit it from her mother, though."
"No, the Dowager sees a great deal more than there is there," laughed Dolly, glancing at me.
"But fortunately," said I, "not all there is in other places."
"Mamma says" we heard Lady Jane remarking at the table. We strolled out into the garden.
"Now, isn't that provoking?" cried Dolly. "they haven't rolled the tennis-lawn, and the people will be here directly."
"Shall I ask Archie to ask somebody to get somebody?"
"They've all gone to dinner, I expect. Suppose you roll it, Mr. Carter? It'll be so good for you. Exercise is what you want."
"Exercise is, no doubt, what I need," said I, doubtfully eyeing the roller.
"It's the same thing," said Dolly.
"It's an eternal Antithesis," said I, taking off my coat.
I began to roll. Dolly stood watching me for a moment. Then she went indoors. I went on rolling. Presently, raising my eyes from my task, I found the curate looking on; he was in flannels and carried a racket.
"Although," I observed to the curate, "I have convinced my reason that there is no harm in being fat, yet, sooner than be fat, I roll. Can you explain that?"
"Reason is not everything," said the curate.
"Your cloth obliges you to that," said I suspiciously.
"I'm in flannels to-day," rejoined the curate, with a smile.
I liked that. I loosed my hold of the roller and took the curate's arm. We began to walk up and down.
"There is also,"' said I, "romance."
"There's little enough of that for most of us," said the curate.
"There has been too much for some of us," I returned. "But the lawn is smooth where the roller has been. The bumps—the pleasant bumps—are gone."
"They spoilt the game," observed the curate.
"They-made the game," said I, frowning a little.
There was silence for a minute. Then the curate asked—
"Is Lady Jane going to play to-day?"
"I seemed like Fate with that roller," said I, "or like Time."
The curate smiled absently.
"Or like Morality," I pursued.
The curate smiled indulgently, was in flannels, good man.
"As to Lady Jane," said I, recollecting myself, "I don't know."
"It's of no consequence," murmured the curate.
At once I knew that it was of consequence—to the curate. But my thoughts drifted in another direction, and when I emerged from the reverie I saw Lady Jane and the curate strolling together on the lawn, and Lady Mickleham approaching me in a white gown; she carried a red parasol.
"Archie and Nellie will be out directly," said she, "and then you can begin."
"They can," said I, putting on my coat and lighting a cigarette.
"Look at that poor dear man with Jane!" exclaimed Dolly. "Now, should you have thought that Jane was the sort of person to?"
"Everybody," said I, "is the sort of person—if the other person is."
"Of course he knows it's hopeless. The Dowager wouldn't hear of it."
"Really? And she hears of so many things!"
Dolly, after a contemptuous glance, began to inspect the lawn. I retired into the shade and sat down. Lady Jane and the curate strolled a little further off. Presently I was roused by an accusing cry from Dolly.
"She's found a bump," said I to myself, shaking my head.
"You never can do things properly," said Dolly, walking up to me.
"I certainly can't do many things in the way I should prefer," I admitted.
"You've left a great bump in the middle of the court!"
My eyes strayed from Dolly to Lady Jane and the curate, and thence back to Dolly.
"It's not my bump," said I, "it's the curate's."
"You're getting into the habit," remarked Dolly, "of being unintelligible. I'm sure there's nothing clever in it. I met a man the other day who said he never understood what you meant."
"You'd understand if you'd stayed; why did you go away?"
"To change," answered Dolly.
I was pleased.
"It's an old trick of yours," said I.
"What did you mean by the bump being the curate's?" asked Dolly, returning to the point.
I entered into an explanation. There was plenty of time; the curate and Lady Jane were strolling, the click of billiard balls through the open windows accounted for Nellie and Archie.
"I see," said Dolly. "Poor man! Do you think he'd like it left?"
I walked leisurely towards the roller, Dolly following me.
"If it were my bump" said I, laying hold of the roller and looking at Lady Mickleham.
Lady Mickleham smiled—under protest. It is a good enough variety of smile.
"If it were my bump," said I, "I should reduce it—so—and so again," and twice I passed the roller gently over the bump.
"It's awfully small now," said Dolly, and her voice sounded regretful.
"It's not so large as it was," said I cheerfully.
Dolly let down her parasol with a jerk.
"You're horribly disagreeable to-day," she said.
I leant on the handle of the roller and smiled.
"You're very rude and—and"
"Nobody," said I, "likes to be told that he has no figure."
"You are an Apollo, Mr. Carter," said Dolly.
That was handsome enough.
"I would let it alone, if it were my bump," said I. "Hang these rollers!"
"It is your bump," said Dolly.
As she spoke, Archie came out of the billiard-room. Lady Jane and the curate hastened to join us.
Archie inspected the lawn.
"Why, it's been rolled!" he cried.
"I rolled it," said I proudly.
"Jove!" said Archie. "Hullo, though, old chap, you haven't been over here."
He had found the bump.
"I have been over there," said I, "oftener than anywhere else."
"Give me the"
"Now, Archie, do begin to play," said Dolly suddenly.
"Oh, well, one doesn't hurt," said Archie.
"It won't hurt much," said the curate; upon which I smiled at Lady Jane.
"What is it, Mr. Carter?" she asked.
"He's so right, you know," said I.
Copyright, 1900, by the S. S. McClure Co., in the United States of America.