'
It goes to a sickening namby-pamby waltz tune, and for
months nothing else was sung and hummed in Blackpool and
other popular centres.''
This time Clovis's self-control broke down badly.
``Please excuse me,'' he gurgled, ``but I can't help it
when I remember the awful solemnity of that article of yours
that you so kindly read us last night, on the Coptic Church
in its relation to early Christian worship.''
Septimus groaned.
``You see how it would be,'' he said; ``as soon as people
knew me to be the author of that miserable sentimental
twaddle, all respect for the serious labours of my life
would be gone. I dare say I know more about memorial
brasses than any one living, in fact I hope one day to
publish a monograph on the subject, but I should be pointed
out everywhere as the man whose ditties were in the mouths
of nigger minstrels along the entire coast-line of our
Island home. Can you wonder that I positively hate Florrie
all the time that I'm trying to grind out sugar-coated
rhapsodies about her?''
``Why not give free play to your emotions, and be brutally
abusive? An uncomplimentary refrain would have an instant
success as a novelty if you were sufficiently outspoken.
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