“Aunt Mattie!”
“My child?”
“Would you mind writing it down at once! I shall be quite certain to forget it if you don’t!”
“My dear, we really must wait till the cab stops. How can I possibly write anything in the midst of all this jolting1?”
“But really I shall be forgetting it!”
Clara’s voice took the plaintive2 tone that her aunt never knew how to resist, and with a sigh the old lady drew forth3 her ivory tablets and prepared to record the amount that Clara had just Spent at the confectioner’s shop. Her expenditure4 was always made out of her aunt’s purse, but the poor girl knew, by bitter experience, that sooner or later “Mad Mathesis” would expect an exact account of every penny that had gone, and she waited, with ill-concealed impatience5, while the old lady turned the tablets over and over, till she had found the one headed “PETTY CASH”.
“Here’s the place,” she said at last, “and here we have yesterday’s luncheon6 duly entered. One glass lemonade (Why ca’n’t you drink water, like me?), three sandwiches (They never put in half mustard enough. I told the young woman so, to her face; and she tossed her head — like her impudence7!), and seven biscuits. Total one-and-two-pence. Well, now for to-day’s?”
“One glass of lemonade — “ Clara was beginning to say, when suddenly the cab drew up, and a courteous8 railway-porter was handing out the bewildered girl before she had had time to finish her sentence.
Her aunt pocketed the tablets instantly. “Business first,” she said: “petty cash — which is a form of pleasure, whatever you may think — afterwards.” And she proceeded to pay the driver, and to give voluminous orders about the luggage, quite deaf to the entreaties9 of her unhappy niece that she would enter the rest of the luncheon account. “My dear, you really must cultivate a more capacious mind!” Was all the consolation10 she vouchsafed11 to the poor girl. “Are not the tablets of your memory wide enough to contain the record of one single luncheon?”
“Not wide enough! Not half wide enough!” was the passionate12 reply.
The words came in aptly enough, but the voice was not that of Clara, and both ladies turned in some surprise to see who it was that had so suddenly struck into their conversation. A fat little old lady was standing13 at the door of a cab, helping14 the driver to extricate15 what seemed an exact duplicate of herself: it would have been no easy task to decide which was the fatter or which looked the more good-humoured of the two sisters.
“I tell you the cab-door isn’t half wide enough!” she repeated, as her sister finally emerged, somewhat after the fashion of a pellet from a pop-gun, and she turned to appeal to Clara. “Is it, dear!” she said, trying hard to bring a frown into a face that dimpled all over with smiles.
“Some folks is too wide for ’em,” growled16 the cabdriver.
“Don’t provoke me, man!” cried the little old lady, in what she meant for a tempest of fury. “Say another word and I’ll put you into the County Court, and sue you for a Habeas Corpus!” the cabman touched his hat, and marched off, grinning.
“Nothing like a little Law to cow the ruffians, my dear!” she remarked confidentially17 to Clara. “You saw how he quailed18 when I mentioned the Habeas Corpus. Not that I’ve any idea what it means, but it sounds very grand, doesn’t it?”
“It’s very provoking,” Clara replied, a little vaguely19.
“Very!” the little old lady eagerly replied. “And we’re very much provoked indeed. Aren’t we, sister?”
“I never was so provoked in all my life!” the fatter sister assented20 radiently.
By this time Clara had recognized her picture-gallery acquaintances, and, drawing her aunt aside, she hastily whispered her reminiscences. “I met them first in Royal Academy — and they were very kind to me — and they were lunching at the next table to us, just now, you know — and they tried to help me to find the picture I wanted — and I’m sure they’re dear old things!”
“Friends of yours, are they?” said Mad Mathesis. “Well I like their looks. You can be civil to them, while I get the tickets. But do try and arrange your ideas a little more chronologically21!”
And so it came to pass that the four ladies found themselves seated side by side on the same bench waiting for the train, and chatting as if they had known one another for years.
“Now this I call quite a remarkable22 coincidencd” exclaimed the smaller and more talkative of the two sisters — the one whose legal knowledge had annihilated23 the cabdriver. “Not only that we should be waiting for the same train, and at the same station — that would be curious enough — but actually on the same day, and the same hour of the day! That’s what strikes me so forcibly!” She glanced at the fatter and more silent sister, whose chief function in life seemed to be to support the family opinion, and who meekly24 responded:
“And me too, sister!”
“Those are not independent coincidences — “ Mad Mathesis was just beginning, when Clara ventured to interpose.
“There’s no jolting here,” she pleaded meekly. “Would you mind writing it down now?”
Out came the ivory tablets once more. “What was it, then?” said her aunt. “One glass of lemonade, one sandwich, one biscuit — Oh, dear me!” cried poor Clara, the historical tone suddenly changing to a wail25 of agony.
“Toothache?” said her aunt calmly, as she wrote down the items. The two sisters instantly opened their reticules and produced two different remedies for neuralgia, each marked “unequalled”.
“It isn’t that!” said poor Clara. “Thank you very much, it’s only that I ca’n’t remember how much I paid!”
“Well, try and make it out, then,” said her aunt. “You’ve got yesterday’s luncheon to help you, you know. And here’s the luncheon we had the day before — the first day we went to that shop — one glass lemonade, four sandwiches, ten biscuits. Total, one-and-fivepence.” She handed the tablets to Clara, who gazed at them with eyes so dim with tears that die did not at first notice that she was holding them upside down. The two sisters had been listening to all this with the deepest interest, and at this juncture26 the smaller one softly laid her hand on Clara’s arm.
“Do you know, my dear,” she said coaxingly27, “my sister and I are in the very same predicament! Quite identically the very same predicament! Aren’t we, sister?”
“Quite identically and absolutely the very — “ began the fatter sister, but she was constructing her sentence on too large a scale, and the little one would not wait for her to finish it.
“Yes, my dear,” she resumed; “we were lunching at the very same shop as you were — and we had two glasses of lemonade and three sandwiches and five biscuits and neither of us has the least idea what we paid. Have we, sister?”
“Quite identically and absolutely — “ murmured the other, who evidently considered that she was now a whole sentence in arrears28, and that she ought to discharge one obligation before contracting any fresh Liabilities; but the little lady broke in again, and she retired29 from the conversation a bankrupt.
“Would you make it out for us, my dear!” pleaded the little old lady. “You can do Arithmetic, I trust?” her aunt said, a little anxiously, as Clara turned from one tablet to another, vainly trying to collect her thoughts. Her mind was a blank, and all human expression was rapidly fading out of her face.
A gloomy silence ensued.
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1
jolting
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| adj.令人震惊的 | |
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2
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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3
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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4
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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5
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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6
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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7
impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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8
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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9
entreaties
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| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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10
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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11
vouchsafed
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| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 )；允诺 | |
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12
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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13
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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14
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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15
extricate
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| v.拯救，救出；解脱 | |
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16
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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17
confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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18
quailed
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| 害怕，发抖，畏缩( quail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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20
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
chronologically
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| ad. 按年代的 | |
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22
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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23
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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24
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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25
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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coaxingly
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| adv. 以巧言诱哄，以甘言哄骗 | |
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28
arrears
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| n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作 | |
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29
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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