James Matthew Barrie
Published: 2020-12-02
Total Pages: 122
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As I enter the club smoking-room you are to conceive David vanishing into nothingness, and that it is any day six years ago at two in the afternoon. I ring for coffee, cigarette, andcherry brandy, and take my chair by the window, just as the absurd little nursery governesscomes tripping into the street. I always feel that I have rung for her.While I am lifting the coffee-pot cautiously lest the lid fall into the cup, she is crossing tothe post-office; as I select the one suitable lump of sugar she is taking six last looks at theletter; with the aid of William I light my cigarette, and now she is re-reading the deliciousaddress. I lie back in my chair, and by this time she has dropped the letter down the slit. Itoy with my liqueur, and she is listening to hear whether the postal authorities have comefor her letter. I scowl at a fellow-member who has had the impudence to enter the smokingroom, and her two little charges are pulling her away from the post-office. When I look outat the window again she is gone, but I shall ring for her to-morrow at two sharp.She must have passed the window many times before I noticed her. I know not whereshe lives, though I suppose it to be hard by. She is taking the little boy and girl, who bullyher, to the St. James's Park, as their hoops tell me, and she ought to look crushed and faded.No doubt her mistress overworks her. It must enrage the other servants to see herdeporting herself as if she were quite the lady.I noticed that she had sometimes other letters to post, but that the posting of the oneonly was a process. They shot down the slit, plebeians all, but it followed pompously likeroyalty. I have even seen her blow a kiss after it