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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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647 the house every night at half-past ten (except on Foreign Post nights, and then twenty minutes before twelve) to see the doors fastened, and the fires out. I’ve never slept out of the back-attic one single night. There’s the same mignonette box in the middle of the window, and the same four flower-pots, two on each side, that I brought with me when I first came. There an’t--I’ve said it again and again, and I’ll maintain it--there an’t such a square as this in the world. I know there an’t,’ said Tim, with sudden energy, and looking sternly about him. ‘Not one. For business or pleasure, in summer-time or winter--I don’t care which--there’s nothing like it. There’s not such a spring in England as the pump under the archway. There’s not such a view in England as the view out of my window; I’ve seen it every morning before I shaved, and I ought to know something about it. I have slept in that room,’ added Tim, sinking his voice a little, ‘for four-and-forty year; and if it wasn’t inconvenient, and didn’t interfere with business, I should request leave to die there.’ ‘Damn you, Tim Linkinwater, how dare you talk about dying?’ roared the twins by one impulse, and blowing their old noses violently. ‘That’s what I’ve got to say, Mr Edwin and Mr Charles,’ said Tim, squaring his shoulders again. ‘This isn’t the first time you’ve talked about superannuating me; but, if you please, we’ll make it the last, and drop the subject for evermore.’ With these words, Tim Linkinwater stalked out, and shut himself up in his glass case, with the air of a man who had had his say, and was thoroughly resolved not to be put down. The brothers interchanged looks, and coughed some half-dozen times without speaking. |
