Wandering Heath by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
page 146 of 194 (75%)
page 146 of 194 (75%)
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At 12.55 Mr. Rabling (after a hasty dinner) handed across the counter of the post-office a telegram addressed to his religious superintendent at Plymouth. The message ran: "Here anual consumption of beer over three milion barls. Greatly distresd, Rabling." The telegraph clerk kindly corrected all the errors of spelling in the above, save one, which escaped him. By "here" Mr. Rabling had intended "hear" (_scilicet_ "I hear," or "we hear"). The answer arrived from Plymouth within an hour. "Am sending missionary next train." Thus our Temperance movement began. The missionary arrived before set of sun, borrowed a chair from Mr. Rabling, carried it down to the town quay and mounted it. A number of children at once gathered round, in the belief that the stranger intended a tumbling performance. The missionary eyed them and began, "Ah, if I can once get hold of you tender little ones--" an infelicitous opening, which scattered them yelling, convinced that the Bogey-man had come for them at last. Upon this he changed his tone and called "O Gomorrah!" aloud several times in a rich baritone voice, which fetched quite a little crowd of elders around him from the reading-room, the fish-market, the "King of Prussia" Inn, and other purlieus of the quay. Then the missionary gave us a most eloquent and inspiriting address, in the course of which he mentioned that if all the beer annually |
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