Explore "The Remittance Man" by Ambrose Pratt on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It had been arranged to hold the much-talked-of conference in the commercial travellers' room of the Royal Hotel, before which small and ugly public house with the pretentious name, Major Reay and his friend, the Doctor, alighted from the former's buggy some 20 minutes prior to the appointed hour. They found the Employers' Association already assembled in the Inn's best parlor drinking milk and whisky, 16 gentlemen all told, most of whom were arrayed as for a funeral. Dr.
Culgin, mindful of the forthcoming elections, shook hands effusively with each in turn, and insisted upon "shouting" fresh drinks for the crowd, a disposition which not one of them seriously combated. They were uninteresting-looking persons for the most part, and like as peas, with one or two exceptions. McStuart Higgs might have served as a model for the conventional John Bull. Now a cane farmer, he had formerly been a Somersetshire yeoman. He tenaciously preserved the traditions of his class even in matters of dress. He firmly believed that God had made the land for gentlefolk and the workers for their slaves. He carried in his hand a hunting whip with which he periodically slashed his top boots when speaking, in order to emphasise the point of his remarks.