CHAPTER FORTY-SIX




OF THE DESPAIR OF SIR ROGER BLOXAM ANENT HIS CAREER; AND OF THE APPEAL THAT HE MADE TO THE CARDINAL.





   Well, you know, it was a bit thick, eh, what? Time was passing; it's a damned bad habit of his; and Sir Roger was no nearer to the choice of a career than when he first put on his long trousers. His despair was positively frightful to witness. He ate, drank, smoked, rode, played cards or chess, tennis or cricket, went canoeing up to Byron's Fool, or pulled a skiff down to Dilton, and in a thousand other similar ways strove to express the anguish, agony, anxiety, worry, torture, grief, pain, torment, horror, apprehension, woe and so on that bit, clawed, scratched, tore at his vitals. It preyed upon hi so much that his favourite bull-dog, whose name was John Thomas, did not notice it. Nevertheless -- and that reminds me of a story. It was at a music-hall in the old days, and the manager came forward to introduce Miss Joconde Jujube, or whatever her name was. A drunken man in the stalls rose to protest: ``She's the lousiest old cow on the stage.'' The manager, unperturbed: ``That may bery well be, sir; nevertheless, she -- will --  perform.''


   Now, dears, get your laugh over, and we'll go on with the Awful Despair of Sir Roger. I feared that without the comic relief you might have lost your reasons.


   For I fear that you will be in suspense yet awhile. I raised your hopes with the chapter-heading; you thought naturally enough that the appeal to the Cardinal would fix the whole caboodle. But alas! ``Oh woe to me that have to sing this thing!'' as Victor Neuburg so selfishly says -- for his hearers are in still more evil case -- through Sir Roiger did indeed consult Cardinal Mentula -- the dwarf was absolutely absorbed in Browning.