His Grace — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HIS GRACE. 49 State one of these fine days. Unfortunately he is one of those people—everybody is acquainted with a few such—who have always been personally abhorrent to me: people whom one cannot greet in the ordinary manner without an almost irresistible longing to rub one’s hand vulgarly afterwards upon one’s trousers ; people to whom one cannot manage to speak civilly, although one has no excuse whatsoever for describing them as scoundrels. I have said already that he was tall, thin, clean-shaven and that he wore an eyeglass ; I may add now that he was rather good-looking than otherwise, and that he had a clear, not unmelodious voice. To what the prompt aversion which I con- ceived for him was due I cannot explain, because I don’t know. It was not, atall events, due to his air of slightly contemptuous patronage nor even to the irritat- ing way in which he made himself at home and seized opportunities of addressing each of the servants by name. Hurstbourne Castle had, as a matter of fact, been his home for many years, and he was perhaps entitled to remind us of the circumstance. However, if I had not already hated him in the earlier part of the even- ing, I daresay I should have done so when the ladies left us after dinner and when he iasennageey set to work to provoke his cousin. ‘* How are you getting on with the good people here- abouts, Arthur,” he inquired, dangling his eyeglass on his forefinger and adopting very much the tone which a good-natured sixth form boy might adopt in address- ing a youngster. ‘“ You'll find the farmers rather a hard-headed lot to deal with; though my impression of them—and of course I know them pretty well—is 4 / Comichboo CS (E(0) aah