MDMD (6)--Outline Ch. 19

[RICHARD ROMEO]

Outline Ch. 19--At the George

Ch 19 takes place within the friendly confines of the drinking 
establishment, the George.  Mason is very depressed and not a little 
peeved at having been told to leave Bradley's death-bed by his family 
because he is not family and people would talk.  The other drinkers are 
Mr. Swivett, a rather excitable soul who bemoans the papacy and the 
French and the lost 11 days when the calndar was changed in 1752;  Mr 
Hailstone, who is more philosophical about the issue but just as annoyed 
by it;  the unnamed proprietor; and Rev Cromorne.  These four argue about 
the removal of 11 days from the calendar, a topic which Mason wishes not 
to discuss remembering arguments with his father.  Finally, he is asked 
about Bradley, a noted friend and former-friend as it stands now.  Still 
smarting over his cold treatment by the Bradley's, Mason, a wee-bit 
impishly, implicates Bradley in a scheme with Macclesfield, Pres. of the 
RS in 1752.  An imagined conversation b/w Maccesfield shows Bradley in a 
rather unflattering light.
Mason furthers his story to suggest that Macclesfield hired these 
"strangers" who lived in quite another relation to time, to live within 
these lost 11 days presumably from Stepney where the Tower of London is 
located.  Mason also speculates on the gender of these "strangers":  
male, female, dead.  and notions of family vows.
Mason then describes their arrival in Gloucestershire, playing a 
jazz-like music, inhabiting the days but letting no time elapse.  They've 
spread all around the globe, we haunt them, they haunt us.  
Mason is offended at the Rev Cromorne's prayer but instead of insulting 
the group buys each the next round and resigns himself to seek out his 
family once more, grudgingly approving of places like the George where 
"regret is just the sort of sentiment that regular life here depends on 
having no part of."


Richard Romeo
Coordinator of Cooperating Collections
The Foundation Center-NYC
212-807-2417
rromeo at fdncenter.org