Monday, January 9, 2012

An unpleasant guest in my house who can't leave, what should I do?

The Bishop of Bequar paid us an unexpected visit; he was on his way to lay the foundation-stone of a mission-house or something of the sort. After a little conversation I found out that this particular one was a distant cousin of mine, belonging to a branch of the family that had quarrelled bitterly with our branch about a Crown Derby dessert service; they got it, and we ought to have got it, in some legacy, or else we got it and they thought they ought to have it, I forget which; anyhow, I know they behaved disgracefully. My husband went fifty miles up-country, talking sense, or what he imagined to be sense, to a village community that fancied one of their leading men was a were-tiger. I decided to be very polite to the bishop, but he started talking about the family quarrel. I didn’t argue the matter, but I gave my cook a holiday to go and visit his aged parents some ninety miles away, and appointed our istant goat-herd as an emergency cook (and cook he could not). The Bishop understood and stopped talking to me. Then, to make matters more complicated, the Gwadlipichee overflowed its banks. A goat or two, the chief goat-herd, the chief goat-herd’s wife, and several of their babies came to anchorage in the verandah, as well as wet hens and chickens. I igned the Bishop a nice large bedroom with a writing table and a bathroom, but he suddenly came to the drawing-room, and said that there was a goat in his bedroom, so he could not stay there. He said it was a dead goat, and it was being devoured by a leopard. Now I have a lot of people, babies, goats, dead and alive, poultry, a leopard and a Bishop with who I am hardly on speaking terms in my house. I do not mind others that much, but the Bishop is really getting on my nerves. What should I do?

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