Читать книгу The Glad Summer - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 6

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Mr. Josiah Biggs, portly, imposing, and senior partner of Messrs. Biggs, Dyke and Biggs, attorneys at law, stared in shocked amazement at the letter he had just perused, flounced in his chair till it creaked in protest, rang the bell violently and shouted at the clerk who answered this summons:

“Send Mr. Arthur to me!”

And presently Mr. Arthur appeared, a placid, gentlemanly person in blond whiskers and the usual garments, on whom Mr. Biggs glared and at whom he shook the letter, exclaiming:

“Arthur, the young fool must be stark, staring mad!”

“Who, Father?”

“I say utterly bereft of his wits, demented, and ready for the madhouse! He should be clapped into Bedlam at once!”

“Why, Father?”

“Never, no—never in all my long experience of human folly have I ever known such an amazingly preposterous, not to say scandalously revolutionary and therefore utterly damnable, suggestion!”

“What, Father?”

“This wildly absurd, perfectly insane letter! Read it; no—I will! Sit, Arthur; sit and listen!” Here Mr. Biggs, senior, flounced again, scowled, cleared his throat resoundingly and read:

“ ‘Gent’—pray remark the absurd abbreviations—‘Gent: On June six, prox., all rents on my Harbourne estates are to be cut by half, viz. fifty p.c. Faithfully, Nicholas Harbourne.’ And what d’you say to this, Arthur?”

“That I am pleasantly surprised, sir.”

“Eh? What? Pleasantly?”

“Yes, Father. I liked Sir Nicholas at our first interview, and this enhances my esteem.”

“Good ... great ... heavens above! But this proves him a madman, a revolutionary, a—a confounded radical who will ruin the country!”

“On the contrary, sir, I venture to say that by this beneficent act in thus relieving his tenantry he will help the country to greater prosperity.”

“Arthur,” cried his sire in horrified tone, “you perfectly astonish and confound me!”

“And, Father, permit me to retort that you astonish me no less.”

“Ha, do I, sir, do I? How, pray?”

“By allowing this fellow Wolf, the bailiff, to so blind you to the welfare of the Harbourne tenantry, to so misdirect you that you have permitted him thus to raise the rents again, the second time in five years, which I pronounce to be sheer tyranny——”

“Oh, do you, sir, do you? It seems you also are influenced by these damnable radical ideas, hey? However, young Harbourne’s preposterous folly shall be nipped in the bud, cut short, ended forthwith.... Well, what now?” he demanded as, with gentle rap, a clerk peeped in fearfully to announce:

“Sir Nicholas Harbourne, gentlemen?”

“Bid him wait until——”

“I’m here!” said Nicholas, and in he strode, light of step and blithe of look, as usual. He nodded gaily to sire, shook hands heartily with son, tossed hat and gloves into one chair, seated himself in another, and said cheerily:

“Now, Mr. Biggs, you may begin.”