"But why," I asked, "should these foolish boys discuss the serious question respecting your dear father in the public street?"
"They don't want to have him--deposited," she said, almost sobbing as she spoke.
"But, my dear," I began, determined to teach her the whole theory of the Fixed Period with all its advantages from first to last.
But she interrupted me at once. "Oh, Mr Neverbend, I know what a good thing it is--to talk about. I have no doubt the world will be a great deal the better for it. And if all the papas had been deposited for the last five hundred years, I don't suppose that I should care so much about it. But to be the first that ever it happened to in all the world! Why should papa be the first? You ought to begin with some weak, crotchety, poor old cripple, who would be a great deal better out of the way. But papa is in excellent health, and has all his wits about him a great deal better than Mr Grundle. He manages everything at Little Christchurch, and manages it very well."
"But, my dear--" I was going to explain to her that in a question of such enormous public interest as this of the Fixed Period it was impossible to consider the merits of individual cases. But she interrupted me again before I could get out a word.
"Oh, Mr Neverbend, they'll never be able to do it, and I'm afraid that then you'll be vexed."
"Oh yes, the law is a very beautiful thing; but what's the good of laws if they cannot be carried out? There's Jack there;--of course he is only a boy, but he swears that all the executive, and all the Assembly, and all the volunteers in Britannula, shan't lead my papa into that beastly college."
"Beastly! My dear, you cannot have seen the college. It is perfectly beautiful."
"That's only what Jack says. It's Jack that calls it beastly. Of course he's not much of a man as yet, but he is your own son. And I do think, that for an earnest spirit about a thing, Jack is a very fine fellow."
"Abraham Grundle, you know, is just as warm on the other side."
"I hate Abraham Grundle. I don't want ever to hear his name again. I understand very well what it is that Abraham Grundle is after. He never cared a straw for me; nor I much for him, if you come to that."