News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had at
last penetrated the far, cold spaces of interstellar niceness, for this
new patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior,
escaped in a white "sailor suit" from the Manor during a period of
severe maternal and tutorial preoccupation.
He seated himself without parley, and the pufformance was offered for
his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady
Clara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing
except an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed
upon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that
he made a discouraging audience "to play to." He was not, however,
unresponsive--far from it. He offered comment very chilling to the warm
grandiloquence of the orator.
"That's my uncle Ethelbert's dachshund," he remarked, at the beginning
of the lecture. "You better take him back if you don't want to get
arrested." And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring the interruption,
proceeded to the exploitation of the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog,
Duke, "Why don't you try to give that old dog away?" asked Roderick.
"You couldn't sell him."
"My papa would buy me a lots better 'coon than that," was the
information volunteered a little later, "only I wouldn't want the nasty
old thing."
Herman of the missing finger obtained no greater indulgence. "Pooh!"
said Roderick. "We have two fox-terriers in our stables that took prizes
at the kennel show, and their tails were BIT off.
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