Brother Copas

I must not overload these slight pages by chronicling at length how Merchester caught and developed the Pageant fever. But to Mr Colt must be given his share of the final credit...

"To be sure," said Brother Copas soothingly. He had met her by chance in the ambulatory on her way from Brother Bonaday's rooms. On a sudden resolve he had told her of the anony...

If a foreigner would apprehend (he can never comprehend) this England of ours, with her dear and ancient graces, and her foibles as ancient and hardly less dear; her law-abiding...

Throughout the night Brother Bonaday hovered between life and death, nor until four days later did the doctor pronounce him out of danger--that is to say, for the time, since th...

In the British Isles--search them all over--you will discover no more agreeable institution of its kind than the Venables Free Library, Merchester; which, by the way, you are on...

The great day dawned at last: the day to which all Merchester had looked forward for months, for which so many hundreds had been working, on which all must now pin their hopes:...

"It was a most extraordinary outburst. . . . Either the child has picked up some bad example at school, to copy it (and you will remember I always doubted that her sex gets any...

"This," said Brother Copas sweetly, turning over his portion of roast duck and searching for some flesh on it, "is not a duck at all, but a pelican, bird of wrath. See, it has d...

When Nurse Branscome reached the docks and inquired at what hour the _Carnatic_ might be expected, the gatekeeper pointed across a maze of dock-basins, wharves, tramway-lines, t...

Although the month was June and the evening warm, Master Blanchminster sat huddled in his armchair before a bright fire. A table stood at his elbow, with some books upon it, his...

"I won't say you sold the pass," snarled Brother Warboise, "though I might. The fact is, there's no trusting your cleverness. You see a chance of showing-off before the Bishop,...

"Well," said Brother Copas, "since the fish are not rising, let us talk. Or rather, you can tell me all about it while I practise casting. . . . By what boat is she coming?"

"I am not," said the Bishop, "putting this before you as an argument. I have lived and mixed with men long enough to know that they are usually persuaded by other things than ar...

Brother Bonaday's heart-attacks, sharp while they lasted, were soon over. Towards evening he had so far recovered that the Nurse saw no harm in his taking a short stroll, with B...

The May-fly season had come around again, and Corona was spending her Saturday--the Greycoats' holiday--with Brother Copas by the banks of Mere. They had brought their frugal lu...

The Honourable and Reverend Eustace John Wriothesley Blanchminster, D.D., Master of St. Hospital-by-Merton, sat in the oriel of his library revising his Trinity Gaudy Sermon. He...

Mr. Simeon looked up from his dinner and stared at his wife as though she had suddenly taken leave of her senses. She sat holding a fork erect and close to her mouth, with a mor...

In the sunshine, on a lower step of the stone stairway that leads up and through the shadow of a vaulted porch to the Hundred Men's Hall, or refectory, Brother Biscoe stood with...

"Uncle Copas," said Corona, as the two passed out through the small doorway in the southern aisle and stood blinking in the sunshine, "I want you next to show me what's left of...

All love being a mystery, I see no reason to speculate how or why it came to pass that Corona, who already possessed two pink and waxen girl-dolls, and treated them with the mer...

At ten o'clock punctually Mr. Colt waited on the Master. This was a part of the daily routine, but ninety-nine times in a hundred the Chaplain's report resolved itself into a ch...

Corona was ushered into an apartment at the back--the boudoir, its mistress called it--and was left there amid a din of singing canaries, while Miss Dickinson carried off Brothe...

Quoted Brother Copas from one of his favourite poems. This was in the kitchen, three days later, and he made one of the crowd edging, pushing, pressing, each with plate in hand,...

'Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have loved, love anew! It is Spring, it is chorussing Spring: 'tis the birthday of earth, and for you! It is Spring; and the Lo...