Still, there is something attractive about torrents. There is a
grandeur in that first rush of passion which results from the sudden
melting of the snows of the heart's purity and faith and high
unstained devotion.
But both torrents and navigable rivers are liable to a common fate,
they may fall over precipices, and when this comes to pass even the
latter cease to be navigable for a space. Now this catastrophe was
about to overtake our friend the Colonel.
Well, Harold Quaritch had dined, and had enjoyed a pleasant as well as
a good dinner. The Squire, who of late had been cheerful as a cricket,
was in his best form, and told long stories with an infinitesimal
point. In anybody else's mouth these stories would have been wearisome
to a degree, but there was a gusto, an originality, and a kind of
Tudor period flavour about the old gentleman, which made his worst and
longest story acceptable in any society. The Colonel himself had also
come out in a most unusual way. He possessed a fund of dry humour
which he rarely produced, but when he did produce it, it was of a most
satisfactory order. On this particular night it was all on view,
greatly to the satisfaction of Ida, who was a witty as well as a
clever woman. And so it came to pass that the dinner was a very
pleasant one.
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