Chapter 6

She knew well that not he, but his malady, was accountable. She believed from her heart in the duality of Forster. There was a hapless page boy whose very presence and assumed stupidity used to inflame his master to perfect Bersaker fits of rage. The scenes were exquisitely ludicrous, if painful; the contrast between the giant and the object of his wrath, scared out of his life with terror, was absolutely diverting. Thus the host would murmur "Biscuits!" which was not heard or not heeded; then louder and more sharply, "BIScuits!" then a roar that made all start, "BIScuits!!" Poor Mrs. Forster's agitation was sad to see, and between her and the butler the luckless lad was somehow got from the room. This attendant was an admirable comedy character, and in his way a typical servant, stolid and reserved. No one could have been so portentously sagacious as _he_ looked. It was admirable to see his unruffled calm during his master's outbursts when something had gone wrong during the dinner. No violence could betray him into anything but the most placid and correct replies. There was something fine and pathetic in this, for it showed that he also recognised that it was not his true master that was thus raging. I recall talking with him shortly after his master's death. After paying his character a fine tribute he spoke of his illness. "You see, sir," he said at last, "what was at the bottom of it all was he 'ad no _staminer, no staminer_--NO STAMINER, sir." And he repeated the word many times with enjoyment. I have no doubt he picked it up at Forster's table and it had struck him as a good effective English word, spelled as he pronounced it.

Such was John Forster.

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End of Project Gutenberg's John Forster, by Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald