it promised to be another rainy, dreary day, too unpleasant to watch birds or pick mushrooms or blueberries, and undine regretted having come up to spend the week at cousin roderick’s mountain retreat.
her host , who was not as well-to-do as he once had been, did not employ a servant who cooked in the mountain retreat. so after undine had prepared and consumed a modest breakfast of toast and oatmeal for herself, she searched roderick out and found him seated in his rocking chair as she had left him on the previous evening, puffing on his horrible little pipe.
however , roderick’s other guest, mister stormbringer, was not present.
“sleep well?” roderick greeted undine.
“well enough,” undine responded, settling herself in an ancient armchair. “i do not see mister stormbringer. is he still with us?”
“oh yes, he is still sleeping. he is a bit on the lazy side, though a fine fellow.”
“i could not help overhearing some of your conversation lat night, as i was going to sleep.”
roderick chuckled. “and what did you make of it?”
“i was not sure what to make of it, as i could not hear it quite clearly. from what i could make out, you are planning to take over the world?”
“ha, ha. no, nothing so extreme as that. the project we were discussing has much a more modest goal.”
“and that was?” undine persisted.
roderick waved his little pipe. “to restore women to their natural condition as the servants of men.”
“oh.”
“yes, we decided we have had quite enough of these damned suffragettes and these what do you call them - femalists? something like that - “
“i think ‘feminist’ is the word you want.”
“yes. ‘feminist’ , that’s it. thank you.”
“and did you and mister stormbringer come to a decision as how to deal with suffragettes and feminists?”
“ha, ha! no, no, we were - we were just tossing ideas around as you might say. everything is still in the planning stage - the exploratory stage.”
“well, roderick, this is all very interesting, but it looks like another dreadful day, not at all suitable for searching out berries or mushrooms. do you have anything to read in this place?
“read? why, of course, i have magazines that are not too old, there are some novels on the shelves over there behind the piano. scott, dickens, all that. try the novels of surtees . he is thought of as just a sporting writer, but he is more than that. quite as good as thackeray in his own way, in my opinion. oh, and i shall be running down to the village later this afternoon, pick up the mail and a few odd things, if you would care to join me.”
“thank you. perhaps i will do that, depending on how engrossing i find mister surtees.”
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