It was not one of his official bilious attacks that Darius had on the
following day; he only yielded himself up in the complete grand manner
when nature absolutely compelled. The goose had not formally beaten
him, but neither had he formally beaten the goose. The battle was
drawn, and this meant that Darius had a slight headache, a feeling of
heavy disgust with the entire polity of the universe, and a
disinclination for food. The first and third symptoms he hid as far as
possible, from pride: at breakfast he toyed with bacon, from pride,
hating bacon. The children knew from his eyes and his guilty gestures
that he was not well, but they dared not refer to his condition; they
were bound to pretend that the health of their father flourished in the
highest perfection. And they were glad that things were no worse.
On the other hand Edwin had a sneezing cold which he could not conceal,
and Darius inimically inquired what foolishness he had committed to have
brought this on himself. Edwin replied that he knew of no cause for it.
A deliberate lie! He knew that he had contracted a chill while writing
a letter to his father in an unwarmed attic, and had intensified the
chill by going forth to post the letter without his overcoat in a raw
evening mist. Obviously, however, he could not have stated the truth.
He was uncomfortable at the breakfast-table, but, after the first few
moments, less so than during the disturbed night he had feared to be.
His father had neither eaten him, nor jumped down his throat, nor
performed any of those unpleasant miraculous feats which fathers usually
do perform when infuriated by filial foolishness. The letter therefore
had not been utterly disastrous; sometimes a letter would ruin a
breakfast, for Mr Clayhanger, with no consideration for the success of
meals, always opened his post before bite or sup. He had had the
letter, and still he was ready to talk to his son in the ordinary grim
tone of a goose-morrow. Which was to the good. Edwin was now convinced
that he had done well to write the letter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------