I was in the breakfast-room. Papa, as usual, was late for breakfast, and I was wondering whether I should begin without him, when, chancing to look round, something caught my eye in the street. I went to the window to see what it was. A small crowd of people was in the middle of the road, and they were all staring at something which, apparently¹, was lying on the ground. What it was I could not see.

 

The butler happened to be in the room. I spoke² to him.

 

‘Peter, what is the matter in the street? Go and see.’

 

He went and saw; and, presently, he returned. Peter is an excellent servant; but the fashion of his speech, even when conveying the most trivial information, is slightly sesquipedalian. He would have made a capital cabinet minister at question time,—he wraps up the smallest portions of meaning in the largest possible words.

 

‘An unfortunate individual appears to have been the victim of a catastrophe³. I am informed that he is dead. The constable⁴ asserts that he is drunk.’

 

‘Drunk?—dead? Do you mean that he is dead drunk?—at this hour!’

 

‘He is either one or the other. I did not behold⁵ the individual myself. I derived⁶ my information from a bystander.’

 

That was not sufficiently⁷ explicit⁸ for me. I gave way to a, seemingly, quite causeless impulse of curiosity, I went out into the street, just as I was, to see for myself. It was, perhaps, not the most sensible thing I could have done, and papa would have been shocked; but I am always shocking papa. It had been raining in the night, and the shoes which I had on were not so well suited as they might have been for an encounter with the mud.

分享到：