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024 - Osborne Hamley Reviews His Position · Wives and Daughters

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty three of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter twenty
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  Speaker 1: three Osborne Hamley reviews his position. Osborne had his solitary
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: cup of coffee in the drawing room. He was very
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  Speaker 1: unhappy too. After his fashion, he stood on the hearth rug,
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  Speaker 1: pondering over his situation. He was not exactly aware how
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: hardly his father was pressed for ready money. The Squire
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: had never spoken to him on the subject without being angry.
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  Speaker 1: And many of his loose, contradictory statements, all of which,
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  Speaker 1: however contradictory they might appear, had their basis in truth,
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  Speaker 1: were set down by his son to the exaggeration of passion.
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  Speaker 1: But it was uncomfortable enough to a young man of
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  Speaker 1: Osborne's age to feel himself continually hampered for want of
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  Speaker 1: a five pound note. The principal supplies for the liberal
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: or most luxurious table at the hall came off the estate,
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  Speaker 1: so that there was no appearance of poverty as far
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  Speaker 1: as the household went, And as long as Osborne was
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  Speaker 1: content at home, he had everything he could wish for.
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  Speaker 1: But he had a wife elsewhere. He wanted to see
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  Speaker 1: her continually, and that necessitated journeys.
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  Speaker 2: She poor thing had to be supported. Where was the
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  Speaker 2: money for the journeys and for Amy's modest ones to
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  Speaker 2: come from?
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  Speaker 1: That was the puzzle in Osborne's mind just now. While
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  Speaker 1: he had been at college, his allowance heir of the
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  Speaker 1: Hamleys had been three hundred, while Roger had to be
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  Speaker 1: content with a hundred less. The payment of these annual
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: sums had given the Squire a good deal of trouble,
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  Speaker 1: but he thought of it as a merely temporary inconvenience,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps unreasonably thought so. Osborne was to do great things,
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  Speaker 1: take high honors, get a fellowship, marry a long descended heiress,
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  Speaker 1: live in some of the many uninhabited rooms at the hall,
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  Speaker 1: and help the Squire in the management of the estate
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  Speaker 1: that would sometime be his. Roger was to be a clergyman, steady, slow.
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  Speaker 1: Roger was just fitted for that, And when he declined
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  Speaker 1: entering the church, preferring a life of more activity and adventure,
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  Speaker 1: Roger was to be anything. He was useful and practical,
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  Speaker 1: and fit for all the employments from which Osborne was
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  Speaker 1: shut out by his fastidiousness and his pseudo genius. So
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  Speaker 1: it was well he was an eldest son, for he
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  Speaker 1: would never have done to struggle through the world. And
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  Speaker 1: as for his settling down to a profession, it would
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  Speaker 1: be like cutting blocks with a razor. And now here
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  Speaker 1: was Osborne living at home, but longing to be elsewhere.
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  Speaker 1: His allowance stopped. In reality, indeed, the punctual payment of
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  Speaker 1: it during the last year or two had been owing
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  Speaker 1: to his mother's exertions, But nothing had been said about
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  Speaker 1: his present cessation by either father or son. Money matters
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  Speaker 1: were too sore a subject between them. Every now and
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: then the Squire threw him a ten pound note or so,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: But the sort of suppressed growl with which it was given,
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  Speaker 1: and the entire uncertainty as to when he might receive
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  Speaker 1: such gifts, rendered any calculation based upon their receipt exceedingly
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  Speaker 1: vague and uncertain.
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  Speaker 2: What in the world can I do to secure an income?
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  Speaker 1: Thought Osborne, as he stood on the hearth rug his
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  Speaker 1: back to a blazing fire, his cup of coffee sent
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  Speaker 1: up in the rare old china that had belonged to
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  Speaker 1: the hall for generations. His dress finished as dress of
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  Speaker 1: Osborne's could hardly fail to be One could hardly have
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  Speaker 1: thought that this elegant young man standing there in the
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  Speaker 1: midst of comfort that verged on luxury, should have been
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  Speaker 1: turning over that one great problem in his mind.
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  Speaker 2: But so it was, What can I do to be
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  Speaker 2: sure of a present income? Things cannot go on as
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  Speaker 2: they are. I should need support for two or three years.
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  Speaker 2: Even if I entered myself at the Temple or Lincoln's Inn,
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  Speaker 2: T would be impossible to live on my pay in
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  Speaker 2: the army. Besides, I should hate that profession. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: there are evils attending all professions. I couldn't bring myself
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  Speaker 2: to become a member of any I've ever heard of.
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  Speaker 2: Perhaps I'm more fitted to take orders than anything else,
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  Speaker 2: but to be compelled to write weekly sermons, whether one
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  Speaker 2: has anything to say or not, and probably doomed only
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  Speaker 2: to associate with people below one in refinement and education.
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  Speaker 2: Yet poor I may must have money. I can't bear
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  Speaker 2: to compare our dinners here, overloaded with joints and games
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  Speaker 2: and sweets, as Morgan will persist in sending them up
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  Speaker 2: with amazed two little mutton chops. Yet what would my
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  Speaker 2: father say if he knew I'd married a frenchwoman? In
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  Speaker 2: his present mood, He'd disinherit me, if that is possible,
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  Speaker 2: and he'd speak about her in a way I couldn't
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  Speaker 2: stand a Roman Catholic too. I don't repent it. I
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  Speaker 2: do it again only if my mother had been in
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  Speaker 2: good health, if she could have heard my story and
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  Speaker 2: known her May as it is, I must keep it
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  Speaker 2: a secret. But where to get money? Where to get money?
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  Speaker 3: Then?
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  Speaker 1: He bethought him of his poems.
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  Speaker 2: Would they sell and bring him in money?
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  Speaker 1: In spite of Milton? He thought they might, and he
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  Speaker 1: went to fetch his manuscripts out of his room. He
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  Speaker 1: sat down near the fire, trying to study them with
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  Speaker 1: a critical eye, to represent public opinion as far as
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  Speaker 1: he could. He had changed his style since the missus
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  Speaker 1: Hemans days. He was essentially imitative in his poetic faculty,
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  Speaker 1: and of late he had followed the lead of a
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  Speaker 1: popular writer of sonnets. He turned his poems over. They
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  Speaker 1: were almost equivalent to an autobiographical passage in his life.
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  Speaker 1: Arranging them in their order, they came as follows.
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  Speaker 2: To Aimee walking with a little child, to Aimee singing
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  Speaker 2: at her work, to Aimee turning away from me while
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  Speaker 2: I told my love. Aimee's confession Aimee in despair foreign
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  Speaker 2: land in which my mme dwells, the wedding ring the wife.
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  Speaker 1: When he came to this last sonnet, he put down
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  Speaker 1: his bundle of papers and began to think the.
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  Speaker 2: Wife, yes, and a French wife, and a Roman Catholic wife,
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  Speaker 2: and a wife who might be said to have been
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  Speaker 2: in service.
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  Speaker 1: And his father's hatred of the French, both collectively and individually,
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  Speaker 1: collectively as tumultuous, brutal Ruffians who murdered their king and
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  Speaker 1: committed all kinds of bloody atrocities individually, as represented by Boney,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and the various caricatures of Johnny Crappold that had been
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  Speaker 1: in full circulation about five and twenty years before this time,
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  Speaker 1: when the Squire had been young and capable of receiving impressions.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: As for the form of religion in which Missus Osborne
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  Speaker 1: Hamley had been brought up, it is enough to say
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  Speaker 1: that Catholic emancipation had begun to be talked about by
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  Speaker 1: some politicians, and that the sullen roar of the majority
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  Speaker 1: of the Englishmen at the bare idea of it was
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  Speaker 1: surging in the distance with ominous threatenings. The very mention
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  Speaker 1: of such a measure before the Squire was as Osborne
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  Speaker 1: well knew, like shaking a red flag before a bull.
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  Speaker 1: And then he considered that if Aimee had the unspeakable,
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  Speaker 1: the incomparable blessing of being born of English parents in
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  Speaker 1: the very heart of England, Warwickshire, for instance, and had
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  Speaker 1: never heard of priests or mass or confession, or the
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  Speaker 1: Pope or Guy Fawkes, but had been born, baptized and
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  Speaker 1: bred in the Church of England, without having ever seen
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  Speaker 1: the outside of a decease venting meeting house or a
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  Speaker 1: papist chapel. Even with all these advantages, her having been
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  Speaker 1: a what was the equivalent for bond in English nursery
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: governess was a term hardly invented. A nursery maid with
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  Speaker 1: wages paid down once a quarter, liable to be dismissed
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  Speaker 1: at a month's warning, and having her tea and sugar
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  Speaker 1: doled out to her would be a shock to his
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  Speaker 1: father's old ancestral pride that he would hardly ever get
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  Speaker 1: over if he saw her, thought Osborne. If he could
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  Speaker 1: but see her, But if the Squire were to see
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  Speaker 1: a may he would also hear her speak her pretty
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  Speaker 1: broken English precious to her husband, as it was in
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  Speaker 1: it that she had confessed brokenly with her English tongue,
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  Speaker 1: that she loved him soundly with her French heart. And
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  Speaker 1: Squire Hamley piqued himself on being a good hater of
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  Speaker 1: the French.
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  Speaker 2: She would make such a loving, sweet also little daughter
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  Speaker 2: to my father. She would go as near as any
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  Speaker 2: one could towards filling up the blank void in this house,
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  Speaker 2: if he would but have her. But he won't, and
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  Speaker 2: he shan't have the opportunity of scouting her yet. If
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  Speaker 2: I called her Lucy in these sonnets, and if they
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  Speaker 2: made a great effect, were praised in Blackwood and the Quarterly,
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  Speaker 2: and all the world was agog to find out the author,
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  Speaker 2: And I told him my secret. I could if I
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  Speaker 2: were successful, I think, then he would ask who Lucy was,
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  Speaker 2: and I could tell him all. Then if how I
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  Speaker 2: hate ifs, if me know ifs. My life has been
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  Speaker 2: based on whens, and first they have turned to ifs,
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  Speaker 2: and then they have vanished away. It was when Olsbourne
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  Speaker 2: gets honors, and then if Osborne, and then a failure altogether.
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  Speaker 2: I said to Himee, when my mother sees you, and
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  Speaker 2: now it is if my father saw her with a
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  Speaker 2: very faint prospect of its ever coming to pass.
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  Speaker 1: So he let the evening hours flow on and disappear
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  Speaker 1: in reveries like these, winding up with a sudden determination
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  Speaker 1: to try the fate of his poems with a publisher,
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  Speaker 1: with the direct expectation of getting money for them, and
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  Speaker 1: an ulterior thing fancy that, if successful, they might work
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  Speaker 1: wonders with his father. When Roger came home, Osborne did
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  Speaker 1: not let a day pass before telling his brother of
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  Speaker 1: his plans. He never did conceal anything long from Roger.
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  Speaker 1: The feminine part of his character made him always desirous
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  Speaker 1: of a confidant and as sweet sympathy as he could extract.
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  Speaker 1: But Roger's opinion had no effect on Osborne's actions, and
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  Speaker 1: Roger knew this full well. So when Osborne began with
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  Speaker 1: I want.
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  Speaker 2: Your advice on a plan I have got into my head,
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  Speaker 2: Roger replied, some.
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  Speaker 3: One told me that the Duke of Wellington's maxim was
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  Speaker 3: never to give advice unless he could enforce its being
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  Speaker 3: carried into effect. Now I can't do that, And you know,
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  Speaker 3: old boy, you don't follow out my advice when you've
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  Speaker 3: got it.
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  Speaker 2: Not always, I know not when it doesn't agree with
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  Speaker 2: my own opinion, or thinking about this concealment of my marriage.
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  Speaker 2: But you're not up in all the circumstances. You know
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  Speaker 2: how fully I meant to have done it if there
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  Speaker 2: hadn't been that row about my debts, and then my
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: mother's illness and death. And now you've no conception how
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: my father is changed, how irritable he has become. Wait
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  Speaker 2: till you've been home a week, Robinson, Morgan. It's the
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  Speaker 2: same with them all, but the worst of all.
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  Speaker 3: With me, poor fellow, said Roger. I thought he'd looked
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  Speaker 3: terribly changed, shrunken, and his readiness of complexion altered.
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  Speaker 2: Why he hardly takes half the exercise he used to do.
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  Speaker 2: So it's no wonder he has turned away all the
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  Speaker 2: men off the new works, which used to be such
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: an interest to him, And because their own cobs stumbled
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  Speaker 2: with him one day and nearly threw him. He won't
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  Speaker 2: ride it, and yet he won't sell it and buy another,
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  Speaker 2: which would be the sensible plan. So there are two
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  Speaker 2: horses eating their heads off while he's constantly talking bad
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: money and expense. And that brings me to what I
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  Speaker 2: was going to say, I'm desperately hard up for money,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: and so I've been collecting my poems, reading them, well,
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  Speaker 2: you know, going over them quite critically in fact. And
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  Speaker 2: I want to know if you think Dayton would publish them.
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  Speaker 2: You've got a name in Cambridge, you know, and I
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  Speaker 2: daresay he would look at them if you offered them
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  Speaker 2: to him.
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  Speaker 3: I can but try, said Roger. But I'm afraid you
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  Speaker 3: won't get much by them.
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  Speaker 2: I don't expect much. I'm a new man and must
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  Speaker 2: make my name. I should be content with a hundred.
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  Speaker 2: If i'd a hundred pounds, i'd set myself to do something.
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  Speaker 2: I might keep myself into me by my writings while
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  Speaker 2: I studied for the bar. Or if the worst came
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  Speaker 2: to the worst, A hundred pounds would take us to Australia.
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  Speaker 3: Australia. Why, Osborne, what could you do there and leave
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  Speaker 3: my father? I hope you'll never get your hundred pounds,
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  Speaker 3: if that's the use you're to make of it. Why
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  Speaker 3: you'd break the Squire's heart.
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  Speaker 1: It might have done once, said Osborne gloomily, but it
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't now.
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  Speaker 2: He looks at me askance, and shies away from conversation
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  Speaker 2: with me. Let me alone for noticing and feeling this
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  Speaker 2: kind of thing. It's this very susceptibility to outward things
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  Speaker 2: that gives me what faculty I have, And it seems
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  Speaker 2: to me as if my bread and my wife's too,
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  Speaker 2: were to depend upon it. You'll soon see for yourself
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the terms which I am on with my father.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Roger did soon see his father had slipped into a
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: habit of silence at meal times, a habit which Osborne,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: who was troubled and anxious enough for his own part,
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  Speaker 1: had not striven to break. Father and sons sat together
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and exchanged all the necessary speeches connected with the occasion,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: civilly enough, But it was a relief to them when
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: their intercourse was over and they separated, the father to
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: brood over his sorrow and his disappointment, which were real
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and deep enough, and the injury he had received from
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: his boy, which was exaggerated in his mind by his
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: ignorance of the actual steps Osborne had taken to raise money.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: If the money lenders had calculated the chances of his
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: father's life or death in making their bargain, Osborne himself
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: had thought only of how soon and how easily he
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: could get the money requisite for clearing him from all
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: imperious claims at Cambridge, and for enabling him to follow
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Amy to her home in Alsace, and for the subsequent marriage.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: As yet, Roger had never seen his brother's wife. Indeed,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: he had only been taken into Osborne's full confidence after
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: all was decided in which his advice could have been useful.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And now in the enforced separation, Osborne's whole thought, both
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the poetical and practical sides of his mind, ran upon
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the little wife, who was passing her lonely days in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: farmhouse lodgings, wondering when her bridegroom husband would come to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: her next. With such an engrossing subject, it was perhaps
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: no wonder that he unconsciously neglected his father, but it
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: was none the less sad at the time, and to
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: be regretted in its consequences.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: I may come in and have a pipe with you, sir,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: mayn't I.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Said Roger that first evening, pushing gently against the study door,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: which his father held only half open. You'll not like it,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: said the Squire, still holding the door against him, but
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: speaking in a relenting tone.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: The tobacco I use isn't what young men like better
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: go and have a cigar with Osborne.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: No, I want to sit with you, and I can
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: stand pretty strong tobacco.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Roger pushed in the resistance, slowly giving way before him.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: It will make your clothes smell. You'll have to borrow
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: Osborne's sense to sweeten.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Yourself, said the squire grimly, at the same time pushing
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: a short, smart amber mouthed pipe to his son.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: No, I'll have a churchwarden. Why father, do you think
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: I'm a baby to put up with a doll's head
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: like this?
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Looking at the carving upon it, the squire was pleased
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: in his heart, though he did not choose to show it.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: He only said.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: Osborne brought it me when he came back from Germany.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: That's three years ago.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: And then for some time they smoked in silence. But
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the voluntary companionship of his son was very soothing to
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the squire. Though not a word might be said, the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: next speech he made showed the direction of his thoughts. Indeed,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: his words were always a transparent medium through which the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: current might be seen.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: A deal of a man's life comes and goes in
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: three years.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I've found that out, and he puffed away at his pipe, again.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: While Roger was turning over in his mind what answer
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to make this truism, the squire again stopped his smirking
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and spoke, m.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: I remember when there was all that fuss about the
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Prince of Wales being made regent. I read somewhere, I
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: dare say it was in a newspaper that kings and
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: their heirs apparents were always on bad terms. Osborne was
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: quite a little chap then. He used to go out
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: riding with me on White Surre. You won't remember the
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: pony be called White Surrey.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: I remember it, but I thought it a tall horse
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: in those days.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: Ah. That was because you were such a small lad,
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: you know. I'd seven horses in the stable then, not
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: counting the farm horses. I don't recollect having a care then,
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: except she was always delicate, you know. But what a
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: beautiful boy Osborne was. He was always dressed in black velvet.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: It was a foppery, but it wasn't my doing, and
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: it was all right. I'm sure he's a handsome fellow now,
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: but the sunshine has gone out of his face.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: He's a good deal troubled about this money and the
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: anxiety he has given you.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Said Roger, rather taking his brother's feelings for granted. Not,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: he said the squire, taking the pipe out of his
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: mouth and hitting the bowl so sharply against the hob
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: that it broke in pieces.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: Not there, but never mind, I say, not he Roger.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: He's none troubled about the money. It is in getting
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: money from Jews. If you're the eldest son and the heir,
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: they just ask how old is your father? And has
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: he had a stroke or a fit? And it's settled
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: out of hand, and then they come prowling about a
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: place and running down the timber and land. Don't let
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: us speak of him. It's no good, Roger. He and
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: I are out of tune. And it seems to me
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: as if only God Almighty could put us to rights.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: It's thinking of how he grieved her at last that
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: makes me so bitter with him. And yet there's a
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: deal of good in him, and he's so quick and clever.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: If only he'd give his mind. Two things. Now, you
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: were always slow, Roger. Oh, your masters used to say so.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Roger laughed a little.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'd many a nickname at school for my slowness,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: said he.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Never mind, said the squad consoled.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: I'm sure I don't. If you were a clever fellow
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: like Osborne Yonder, you'd be off a caring for books
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: and writing, and you'd perhaps find it as dull as
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: he does to keep company with a bumpkin squire Jones
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: like me. Yet, I dare say they think a deal
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: of you at.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Cambridge, said he, after a pause.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: Since you've got this fine wranglership, I'd nearly forgotten that
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: the news came at such a miserable time.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Well, yes, they're always proud of the senior wrangler of
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: the year up at Cambridge. Next year, I must abdicate.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: The Squire sat and gazed into the embers, still holding
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: his useless pipestem. At last, he said, in a low voice,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: as if scarcely aware he had got a listener.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: I used to write to her when she was away
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: in London and tell her the whole news, But no
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: letter will reach her. Now nothing reaches her.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Roger started up, Ah, where's the tobacco box?
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: Father?
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Let me fill you another pipe?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And when he had done so, he stooped over his
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: father and stroked his cheek. The Squire shook his head.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: You've only just come home, lad, you don't know me
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: as I am now a days, ask Robinson. I won't
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: have you asking Osborne. He ought to keep it to himself,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: But any of the servants will tell you I'm not
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: like the same man for getting into passions with them.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: I used to be reckoned a good master, but that's
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: past now. Osborne was once a little boy, and she
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: was once alive, and I was once a good master.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: A good master. Yes, it's all past now.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: He took up his pipe and began to smoke afresh,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and Roger, after a silence of some minutes, began a
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: long story about some Cambridge man's misadventure on the hunting field,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: telling it with such humor that the Squire was beguiled
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: into hearty laughing. When they rose to go to bed,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: his father said to.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: Roger, well, we've had a pleasant evening, at least I have,
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: but perhaps you haven't, for I'm but poor company. Now
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: I know, I don't.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Know when I've passed a happier evening, father.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Said Roger, And he spoke truly, though he did not
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: trouble himself to find out the cause of his happiness.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter twenty three