"Well done, Scipio!" the Major would say, nine days out of ten.
But to-day he pushed the tray from him pettishly, ignoring Scipio.
"You'll excuse me"--he turned to the Vicar--"but if what you say is
correct (you may go, Scipio) it puts me in a position of some
responsibility."
"I felt sure you would see it in that light. It's a responsibility
for me, too."
"To-day is the twenty-fifth. We have little more than a month."
"What am I to say in church next Sunday?"
"Why, as for that, you must say nothing. Good Heavens! is this a
time for adding to the disquietude of men's minds?"
"I had thought," the Vicar confessed, "of memorialising the
Government."
"Addington!" The Major's tone whenever he had occasion to mention Mr.
Addington was a study in scornful expression. He himself had once
memorialised the Prime Minister for a couple of nineteen-pounders
which, with the two on the Old Fort, would have made our harbour
impregnable. "Addington! It's hard on you, I know," he went on
sympathetically, "to keep a discovery like this to yourself. But we
might tell Hansombody."
"Why Hansombody?" For the second time a suspicion crossed the
Vicar's mind that his hearers were confusing the Millennium with some
infectious ailment.
"It is bound to affect his practice," suggested Miss Marty.
"To be sure," the Major chimed in. As a matter of fact, he attached
great importance to the apothecary's judgment, and was wont to lean
on it, though not too ostentatiously.
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