By E. F. BENSON.
An Act in a Backwater.
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D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
An Act in a Backwater
By
E. F. BENSON
Author of
“Dodo,” “Scarlet and Hyssop,” etc.
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
MCMIII
| CHAPTER I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX. |
Copyright, 1903, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Published November, 1903
[1]
AN ACT IN A BACKWATER
CHAPTER I
It was approaching half-past five on a June afternoon, and inconsequence Colonel Raymond was approaching the Wroxton County Club. Hewas a man of method, and a retired Colonel of Volunteers, and thus heleft his house (christened Lammermoor by his wife) with great regularityat a quarter past five in summer, and a quarter past four in winter, andmarched rather than walked with an inflated chest and a gallant bearing.The Colonel, even at the age of fifty-six, remained one of thoseharmless idiots who draw themselves up and try to look interestingwhenever a pretty woman passes them; indeed, he went further, for, beinga little short-sighted, he drew himself up and tried to look interestingwhen he saw any female figure approaching, on the chance that at nearer[2]range she might prove to be pretty. He had a somewhat flaming face, anda long mustache “silver sabled.” In very hot weather he was liable totouches of liver, and when thus afflicted, sometimes alluded, when onlycomparative strangers were present, to the trying climate of India, acountry in which, as his intimate acquaintances knew, he had never setfoot. But to t