The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck A Comedy of Limitations

grave it seemed afterward that he had dreamed them away in some vague Lotus Land-in a delectable country where, he r

nd and Ophir would you have had it otherwise. Ah, no, not otherwise in the least trifle. For now uplifted to a rosy zone of acquiescence, you partook incuriously at table of nectar and ambrosia, and noted abroad, with

nobleman. He wondered savagely what was in them; he posted them with a vicious shove; and, for the time, they caused him acute twinges of misery. But not for long; no, for, in sober earnest, i

n spite of the fact that she had previously read John Charteris's tales of Lichfield,-"those effusions which" (if the Lichfield Courier-Herald is to be trusted) "have builded

center of America's wealth, politics and culture, the town to which Europeans compiling "impressions" of America devoted one of their longest chapters in th

ry delights to catalogue,-tall, brilliant Lizzie Allardyce, the lovely and cattish Marian Winwood, to whom Felix Kennaston wrote those wonderful love-letters which she published when he married Kathleen Saumarez, the rich B

ce, but found Patricia less tractable than the most stubborn of juries. Bluff Walter Thurman, too, who was said to know more of Dickens, whist and criminal law than any other man living, came to worship at her shrine, as likewise did huge red-faced Ashby Bland, famed for that cavalry charge which history-books tell you that he led, and at which he actually was not present, for

importance or novelty to merit record. Then, also, he often read aloud to her from lovely books, for the colonel read admirably and did not scruple to give emotional passages their value. Trilby, published the precedi

ned tiny parlor-table, and were frightened by the vastness of the world outside, and crept ignominiously back to their fit home. "And so," the colonel ended, "the

lly-goat-legged person to take the shepherdess away into his cupboard. I don't doubt the little china people were glad of it. Bu

terial in the whole universe. And the old grandfather was glad, at bottom, he had it i

a rip among the bric-à-brac in hi

wardly to attempt it. And when others try it, we are envious and a little uncomfortable, and we probably scoff; but we can't help admiring, and there is a rivet in the neck of all of us which prevents us from interfering. Oh, yes, we little china people have a variety of rivets, thank God, to prevent too frequent nodding and too coward

mix metaphors-and keeps us stiffnecked against all sorts of calls. No, I am not sure that the thing one cannot do