Mr. Britling Sees It Through Read Online Free Page A

indicated to him by a mere wave of Mr. Britling’s hand. “That’s Edith,” he said, and returned at once to his car to put it away. Mrs. Britling was a tall, freckled woman with pretty bright brown hair and preoccupied brown eyes. She welcomed him with a handshake, and then a wonderful English parlourmaid—she at least was according to expectations—took his gripsack and guided him to his room. “Lunch, sir,” she said, “is outside,” and closed the door and left him to that and a towel-covered can of hot water.
    It was a square-looking old red-brick house he had come to, very handsome in a simple Georgian fashion, with a broad lawn before it and great blue cedar-trees, and a drive that came frankly up to the front door and then went off with Mr. Britling and the car round to unknown regions at the back. The centre of the house was a big airy hall, oak-panelled, warmed in winter onlyby one large fireplace and abounding in doors which he knew opened into the square separate rooms that England favours. Book-shelves and stuffed birds comforted the landing outside his bedroom. He descended to find the hall occupied by a small bright bristling boy in white flannel shirt and knickerbockers and bare legs and feet. He stood before the vacant open fireplace in an attitude that Mr. Direck knew instantly was also Mr. Britling’s. “Lunch is in the garden,” the Britling scion proclaimed, “and I’ve got to fetch you. And, I say! is it true? Are you American?”
    â€œWhy surely,” said Mr. Direck.
    â€œWell, I know some American,” said the boy. “I learned it.”
    â€œTell me some,” said Mr. Direck, smiling still more amiably.
    â€œOh! Well—Gol darn you! Ouch. Gee-whizz! Soak him Maud! It’s up to you, Duke. …”
    â€œNow where did you learn all that?” asked Mr. Direck recovering.
    â€œOut of the Sunday Supplement,” said the youthful Britling.
    â€œWhy! Then you know all about Buster Brown,” said Mr. Direck. “He’s Fine—eh?”
    The Britling child hated Buster Brown. He regarded Buster Brown as a totally unnecessary infant. He detested the way he wore his hair and the peculiar cut of his knickerbockers and—him. He thought Buster Brown the one drop of paraffin in the otherwise delicious feast of the Sunday Supplement. But he was a diplomatic child.
    â€œI think I like Happy Hooligan better,” he said. “And dat ole Maud.”
    He reflected with joyful eyes, Buster clean forgotten. “Every week,” he said, “she kicks some one.”
    It came to Mr. Direck as a very pleasant discovery that a British infant could find a common ground with the smallpeople at home in these characteristically American jests. He had never dreamt that the fine wine of Maud and Buster could travel.
    â€œMaud’s a treat,” said the youthful Britling, relapsing into his native tongue.
    Mr. Britling appeared coming to meet them. He was now in a grey flannel suit—he must have jumped into it—and altogether very much tidier. …
    Â§ 9
    The long narrow table under the big sycamores between the house and the adapted barn that Mr. Direck learned was used for “dancing and all that sort of thing” was covered with a blue linen diaper cloth, and that too surprised him. This was his first meal in a private household, and for obscure reasons he had expected something very stiff and formal with “spotless napery.” He had also expected a very stiff and capable service by implacable parlour-maids, and the whole thing indeed highly genteel. But two cheerful women servants appeared from what was presumably the kitchen direction, wheeling a curious wicker erection, which his small guide informed him was called Aunt Clatter—manifestly deservedly—and which bore on its shelves the substance of the meal. And while the maids at this migratory sideboard carved and