[The Short Works of George Meredith by George Meredith]@TWC D-Link bookThe Short Works of George Meredith CHAPTER III 13/24
I will call you to witness by an account of him.' Duchess Susan gaped, and, 'Oh, don't!' she cried out; but added, 'It 's broad day, and I've got some one to sleep anigh me after dark'; with which she smiled on Chloe, who promised her there was no matter for alarm. 'I encountered my gentleman as I was proceeding to my room at night,' said the beau, 'along a narrow corridor, where it was imperative that one of us should yield the 'pas;' and, I must confess it, we are all so amazingly alike in our bones, that I stood prepared to demand place of him.
For indubitably the fellow was an obstruction, and at the first glance repulsive.
I took him for anybody's skeleton, Death's ensign, with his cachinnatory skull, and the numbered ribs, and the extraordinary splay feet--in fact, the whole ungainly and shaky hobbledehoy which man is built on, and by whose image in his weaker moments he is haunted.
I had, to be frank, been dancing on a supper with certain of our choicest Wits and Beauties.
It is a recipe for conjuring apparitions.
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