Manchurian Books

"...
Dim memories of Mrs. Mackridge floated through my mind as I listened to
her....
I was whirled on this roundabout for a bit, and then had the fortune to
fall off into a tete-a-tete with a lady whom my aunt introduced as
Mrs. Mumble--but then she introduced everybody to me as Mumble that
afternoon, either by way of humour or necessity.
That must have been one of my earliest essays in the art of polite
conversation, and I remember that I began by criticising the local
railway service, and that at the third sentence or thereabouts Mrs.
Mumble said in a distinctly bright and encouraging way that she feared I
was a very "frivolous" person.
I wonder now what it was I said that was "frivolous."
I don't know what happened to end that conversation, or if it had
an end. I remember talking to one of the clergy for a time rather
awkwardly, and being given a sort of topographical history of Beckenham,
which he assured me time after time was "Quite an old place. Quite an
old place." As though I had treated it as new and he meant to be very
patient but very convincing.


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386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410