The Young Visiters | Page 2

sat down to her amazing
tale.
"Her mother used to have early tea in bed." Many authors must have
had a similar experience, but they all missed the possibilities of it until
this young woman came along. It thrilled her; and tea in [Pg ix] bed at
last takes its proper place in fiction. "Mr Salteena woke up rarther early
next day and was delighted to find Horace the footman entering with a

cup of tea. Oh thank you my man said Mr Salteena rolling over in the
costly bed. Mr Clark is nearly out of the bath sir announced Horace I
will have great pleasure in turning it on for you if such is your desire.
Well yes you might said Mr Salteena seeing it was the idear." Mr
Salteena cleverly conceals his emotion, but as soon as he is alone he
rushes to Ethel's door, "I say said Mr Salteena excitedly I have had
some tea in bed."
"Sometimes visitors came to the house." Nothing much in that to us,
but how consummately this child must have studied them; if you
consider what she knew of them before the "viacle" arrived to take
them back to the station you will never dare to spend another week-end
in a house where there may be a novelist of nine years. I am sure that
when you left your bedroom this child stole in, examined everything
[Pg x] and summed you up. She was particularly curious about the
articles on your dressing-table, including the little box containing a
reddish powder, and she never desisted from watching you till she
caught you dabbing it on your cheeks. This powder, which she spells
"ruge," went a little to her head, and it accompanies Ethel on her travels
with superb effect. For instance, she is careful to put it on to be
proposed to; and again its first appearance is excused in words that
should henceforth be serviceable in every boudoir. "I shall put some red
ruge on my face said Ethel becouse I am very pale owing to the drains
in this house."
Those who read will see how the rooms in Hampton Court became the
"compartments" in the "Crystale" Palace, and how the "Gaierty" Hotel
grew out of the Gaiety Theatre, with many other agreeable changes.
The novelist will find the tale a model for his future work. How
incomparably, for instance, the authoress dives [Pg xi] into her story at
once. How cunningly throughout she keeps us on the hooks of suspense,
jumping to Mr Salteena when we are in a quiver about Ethel, and
turning to Ethel when we are quite uneasy about Mr Salteena. This
authoress of nine is flirting with her readers all the time. Her mind is
such a rich pocket that as she digs in it (her head to the side and her
tongue well out) she sends up showers of nuggets. There seldom
probably was a novelist with such an uncanny knowledge of his

characters as she has of Mr Salteena. The first line of the tale etches
him for all time: "Mr Salteena was an elderly man of 42 and fond of
asking people to stay with him." On the next page Salteena draws a
touching picture of himself in a letter accepting an invitation: "I do
hope I shall enjoy myself with you. I am fond of digging in the garden
and I am parshal to ladies if they are nice I suppose it is my nature. I
am not quite a gentleman but you would hardly notice it but can't be
helped anyhow." [Pg xii] "When the great morning arrived Mr Salteena
did not have an egg for his breakfast in case he should be sick on the
journey." For my part I love Mr Salteena, who has a touch of Hamlet,
and I wished up to the end that Ethel would make him happy, though I
never had much hope after I read the description of Bernard Clark's
legs.
It is not to be wondered at that Mr Salteena soon grew "rarther jellous"
of Bernard, who showed off from the first. "My own room is next the
bathroom said Bernard it is decerated dark red as I have somber tastes.
The bathroom has got a tip up basin." Thus was Mr Salteena put in his
place, and there the cruel authoress (with her tongue farther out than
ever) doggedly keeps him. "After dinner Ethel played some merry
tunes on the piano and Bernard responded with a rarther loud song in a
base voice and Ethel clapped him a good deal. Then Mr Salteena asked
a few riddles as he was not musicle." No wonder Mr Salteena went
gloomily to bed, not to [Pg xiii] sleep, but to think out the greater riddle
of