Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
page 80 of 573 (13%)
page 80 of 573 (13%)
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"True, true--not at all," said the friendly Oak. "Don't let your teeth quite meet, and you won't feel the sandiness at all. Ah! 'tis wonderful what can be done by contrivance!" "My own mind exactly, neighbour." "Ah, he's his grandfer's own grandson!--his grandfer were just such a nice unparticular man!" said the maltster. "Drink, Henry Fray--drink," magnanimously said Jan Coggan, a person who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and share alike where liquor was concerned, as the vessel showed signs of approaching him in its gradual revolution among them. Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful gaze into mid-air, Henry did not refuse. He was a man of more than middle age, with eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it down that the law of the world was bad, with a long-suffering look through his listeners at the world alluded to, as it presented itself to his imagination. He always signed his name "Henery"--strenuously insisting upon that spelling, and if any passing schoolmaster ventured to remark that the second "e" was superfluous and old-fashioned, he received the reply that "H-e-n-e-r-y" was the name he was christened and the name he would stick to--in the tone of one to whom orthographical differences were matters which had a great deal to do with personal character. Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henery, was a crimson man with a spacious countenance and private glimmer in his eye, whose |
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