文档介绍：DOLLY DIALOGUES
DOLLY DIALOGUES
by Anthony Hope
1
DOLLY DIALOGUES
A LIBERAL EDUCATION
"There's ingratitude for you!" Miss Dolly Foster exclaimed suddenly.
"Where!" I asked, rousing myself from meditation.
She pointed to a young man who had just passed where we sat. He
was dressed very smartly, and was walking with a lady attired in the height
of the fashion.
"I made that man," said Dolly, "and now he cuts me dead before the
whole of the Row! It's atrocious. Why, but for me, do you suppose he'd
be at this moment engaged to three thousand a year and--and the plainest
girl in London?"
"Not that," I pleaded; "think of--"
"Well, very plain anyhow. I was quite ready to bow to him. I almost
did."
"In fact you did?"
"I didn't. I declare I didn't."
"Oh, well, you didn't then. It only looked like it."
"I met him," said Miss Dolly, "three years ago. At that time he was--
oh, quite unpresentable. He was everything he shouldn't be. He was a
teetotaler, you know, and he didn't smoke, and he was always going to
concerts. Oh, and he wore his hair long, and his trousers short, and his
hat on the back of his head. And his umbrella--"
"Where did he wear that?"
"He carried that, Mr. Carter. Don't be silly! Carried it unrolled, you
know, and generally a paper parcel in the other hand; and he had
spectacles too."
"He has certainly changed, outwardly at least.
"Yes, I know; well, I did that. I took him in hand, and I just taught
him, and now--!"
"Yes, I know that. But how did you teach him? Give him Saturday
evening lectures, or what?"
"Oh, every-evening lectures, and most-morning walks. And I taught
him to dance, and broke his wretched fiddle with my own hands!"
2
DOLLY DIALOGUES
"What very arbitrary distinctions you draw!"
"I don't know that you mean. I do like a man to be smart, anyhow.
Don't you, Mr. Carter? You're not so smart as you might be. Now, shall
I take you in hand?" And she smiled upon me.
"Let's hear your met