The Story of Louie — Oliver Onions

Excerpt: ...the Almanack de Gotha and Modern Society; these were always to hand; but The Licensed Victuallers' Gazette, which he took in the way of business, was kept out of Louie's way. Mr. Mackie he would have torn from limb to limb. Far more royalist than the king was Buck; Radicalism was chaos, which word he pronounced "tchayoss." Of pugilism, save to Chaff, he never spoke. "God bless the Squire and his relations." And (Louie thought) God bless this simple-hearted father of hers also. Buck in the ring had been a better man than Uncle Augustus in the House of Lords, and Henson would not have looked twice at Chaff. Granted he was pompous; with a little more pompousness her mother would have come more creditably out of that old affair. So much for the Scarisbricks. Already, in January, Louie loved her father; by March his daily visit was a necessity of her life. She had been right; her destiny was quite as likely to be bound up with Buck and his beer-pumps as with anything in that dingy old Business School. Of the Business School she still thought a good deal, however. She could not forget the interesting little drama of which she had seen, as it were, the first act. Somehow, time and distance had simplified some of its details without diminishing her interest in it, and, as she walked along the Putney towpath by day, or lay awake in her white-painted room at night, she wondered that this should be so. By the brutal logic of events, Rainham Parva should have been nearer to her than Holborn; but Rainham Parva seemed now disproportionately remote. Why? Had the conclusion which persisted in presenting itself not been impossible, perhaps she would not have faced it so frankly. It was impossible....