Public and private life of animals / [J. Thomson].

  • Thomson, J.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Public and private life of animals / [J. Thomson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Trotter. That of course alters the matter. If you have pledged your word, Babolin must fall. Gnaiver. Yes, certainly ! Trotter. Is Babolin a weather-cock, that you can turn him at will ? Gnawer. No; he is anything but a weather-cock. It would almost take a surgical operation to get a notion out of his rat’s head when it is once there. Trotter. [.Astonished.] Is the parent of this fair girl a rat ? Gnawer. No, not exactly. He is what men call a Church Bat. He dispenses holy water at the door of Notre Dame, and sells candles to the faithful, which they piously light in honour of God and the saints. Trotter. I know. The candles which are lit on the shrine when their owners are present, and carefully extinguished and saved wdien they have gone, by order of the thrifty saints perhaps. So men in their pious thrift exact a heavy percentage of profit out of holy things. Gnaiver. Come! come ! You may grow indignant at your leisure. I hear Babolin approaching. Let us leave him a clear field ; he might tread on us. SCENE Y. Enter Babolin. So, so! In spite of my express wishes he meets my daughter. Comes like a thief to the window under cover of night. I shall show them what I am. [Calls Toinon; Toinon enters.] Where are my rights as a father? where are they? It is Mr. Paul who mocks me! [As if struck with an idea, he pauses.'] What if I said nothing about my mischances? If I acted the clement loving father. Paul loves my daughter. My daughter loves Paul. If, like the really kind-hearted man that I am, I yield to their wishes ? That would do me honour, and make me appear before the world a model of virtue and forbear- ance. [Approaching his daughter.] Say, my little Toinon, does it grieve you very much not to wed your Paul? [Toinon, whose heart is too full for speech, bursts into tears.] Toinon, if instead of going to the lawyer we go to the notary ? Toinon. [Smiling like the sun through a rain-cloud.] To the notary, my father ?
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