Irvin S. Cobb
Fibble, D.D
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066176327
Table of Contents
Being a Card to the Public from the Pen of the Rev. Roscoe Titmarsh Fibble, D.D.
Being an Open Letter Addressed by Dr. Fibble to One Sitting in a High Place.
Being a Series of Extracts Culled from the Diary of Dr. Fibble.
ILLUSTRATIONS
| Momentarily the articles that filled my arms and hung on my shoulders and back grew more cumbersome and burdensome | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| May I ask whether you are going to a fancy dress party somewhere? | 42 |
| Until he loomed almost above my kneeling form | 94 |
| "I," she said, "am Major Jones" | 132 |
| From its depths I extracted the parting gifts bestowed upon me by my Great-Aunt Paulina | 176 |
| "Say coo-coo clearly and distinctly and keep on saying it until I call out 'Enough'" | 234 |
| To be exact, I kissed at her | 268 |
PART ONE
Being a Card to the Public from the Pen
of the Rev. Roscoe Titmarsh Fibble, D.D.
Fibble, D.D.
The Young Nuts of America
IT is with a feeling of the utmost reluctance, amounting—if I may use so strong a word—to distress, that I take my pen in hand to indite the exceedingly painful account which follows; yet I feel I owe it not only to myself and the parishioners of St. Barnabas', but to the community at large, to explain in amplified detail why I have withdrawn suddenly, automatically as it were, from the organisation of youthful forest rangers of which I was, during its brief existence, the actuating spirit, and simultaneously have resigned my charge to seek a field of congenial endeavour elsewhere.
My first inclination was to remain silent; to treat with dignified silence the grossly exaggerated statements that lately obtained circulation, and, I fear me, credence, in some quarters, regarding the circumstances which have inspired me in taking the above steps. Inasmuch, however, as there has crept into the public prints hereabout a so-called item or article purporting to describe divers of my recent lamentable experiences—an item which I am constrained to believe the author thereof regarded as being of a humorous character, but in which no right-minded person could possibly see aught to provoke mirth—I have abandoned my original resolution and shall now lay bare the true facts.
In part my motive for so doing is based on personal grounds, for I have indeed endured grievously both laceration of the tenderest sensibilities and anguish of the corporeal body; but I feel also that I have a public duty to perform. If this unhappy recital but serves to put others on their guard against a too-ready acceptance of certain specious literature dealing with the fancied delights—I say fancied advisedly and for greater emphasis repeat the whole phrase—against the fancied delights of life in the greenwood, then in such case my own poignant pangs shall not have entirely been in vain.
With these introductory remarks, I shall now proceed to a calm, temperate and dispassionate narration of the various occurrences leading up to a climax that left me for a measurable space prone on the bed of affliction, and from which I have but newly risen, though still much shaken.
When I came to St. Barnabas' as assistant to the Reverend Doctor Tubley my personal inclination, I own, was for parish work among our female members. I felt that, both by natural leanings and by training, I was especially equipped to be of aid and comfort here. Instinctively, as it were, I have ever been drawn toward the other and gentler sex; but my superior felt that my best opportunities for service lay with the males of a tender and susceptible age.
He recommended that, for the time being at least, I devote my energies to the youthful masculine individuals within the parish fold; that I make myself as one with them if not one of them; that I take the lead in uniting them into helpful bands and associations. He felt that the youth of St. Barnabas' had been left rather too much to their own devices—which devices, though doubtlessly innocent enough in character, were hardly calculated to guide them into the higher pathways. I am endeavouring to repeat here the Reverend Doctor Tubley's words as exactly as may be.
Continuing, he said he felt that our boys had been in a measure neglected