I wrote to the messenger people to
send the most capable lad on their books; we would engage him by the
week, at twice his ordinary pay. He arrived; a limp and lean nonentity,
with a face like a boiled codfish.
This miserable youth promptly became the object of O----'s bitterest
execration. I soon learnt to dread those conferences, those terrific
scenes which I was forced to witness in my capacity of interpreter.
O---- revelled in them with exceeding gusto. He used to gird his loins
for the effort of vituperation; I think he regarded the performance as a
legitimate kind of exercise--his last remaining one. As soon as the boy
returned from town and presented himself with his purchases, O---- would
glare at him for two or three minutes with such virulence, such
concentration of hatred and loathing, such a blaze of malignity in his
black eyes, that one fully expected to see the victim wither away; all
this in dead silence. Then he would address me in his usual whisper,
quite calmly, as though referring to the weather:
"Would you mind telling that double-distilled abortion that if he goes
on making such a face I shall have to shoot him. Tell him, will you;
there's a good fellow."
And I had to "humour" him.
"The gentleman"--I would say--"begs you will try to assume another
expression of countenance," or words to that effect; whereto he would
tearfully reply something about the will of God and the workmanship of
his father and mother, honest folks, both of them.
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