The Ffolliots of Redmarley

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

ELOQUENT

"Father, what d'you think we'd better call him?" Mrs Gallup asked, when the baby was a week old; "have you thought of a name?"

"I've fixed on a name," her husband replied, triumphantly. "The child shall be called Eloquent."

"Eloquent," Mrs Gallup repeated, dubiously. "That's a queer name, isn't it? 'Tisn't a name at all, not really."

"It's going to be my son's name, anyhow," Mr Gallup retorted, positively. "I've thought the matter out, most careful I've considered it, and that's the name my son's got to be called . . . Eloquent Gallup he'll be, and a very good name too."

"But why Eloquent?" Mrs Gallup persisted. "How d'you know as he'll be eloquent? an' if he isn't, that name'll make him a laughing-stock. Suppose he was to grow up one of them say-nothing-to-nobody sort of chaps, always looking down his nose, and afraid to say 'Bo' to a goose: what's he to do with such a name?"

"There's no fear my son will grow up a-say-nothing-to-nobody sort of chap," said Mr Gallup, boastfully. "I'll take care of that. Now you listen to me, mother. You know the proverb 'Give a dog a bad name'——"

"I never said it was a bad name," Mrs Gallup pleaded.

"I should think you didn't—but look here, if it's true of a bad name, mustn't it be equally true of a good one? Why, it's argument, it's logic, that is. Call a boy Eloquent and ten to one he'll be eloquent, don't you see?"

"But what d'you want him to be eloquent for?" Mrs Gallup enquired almost tearfully. "What good will it do him—precious lamb?"

"There's others to be thought of as well as 'im," Mr Gallup remarked, mysteriously.

"Who? More children?" asked Mrs Gallup. "I don't see as he'd need to be eloquent just to mind his little brother or sister."

"Ellen Gallup, you listen to me. That babe lying there on your knee with a red face all puckered up is going to sway the multitude." Mrs Gallup gasped, and clutched her baby closer. "He's going to be one of those whose voice shall ring clarion-like"—here Mr Gallup unconsciously raised his own, and the baby stirred uneasily—"over"—he paused for a simile—he had been going to say "land and sea," but it didn't finish the sentence to his liking, "far and wide," he concluded, rather lamely.

Mrs Gallup made no remark, so he continued: "Eloquent Gallup shall be a politician. Some day he'll stand for parlyment, and he'll get in, and when he's there he'll speak up and he'll speak out for the rights of his fellow men, and he'll proclaim their wrongs."

And there and then, as if in vindication of his father's belief in him, the baby began to roar so lustily that further converse was impossible.

A week later, the baby was baptized Eloquent Abel Gallup. Abel was a concession to his mother's qualms. It was his father's name, and by her it was looked upon as a loophole of escape for her son, should Eloquent prove a misnomer.

"After all," she reflected, "if the poor chap shouldn't have the gift of the gab, Abel's a good everyday workin' name, and he can drop the E if it suits 'im....