Again The Incantations Proceeded, And After A While The
Boy, Being Seemingly A Little Agitated, Was Asked Whether He Saw
Anything On The Palm Of His Hand.
He declared that he saw a kind
of military procession, with flags and banners, which he described
rather minutely.
I was then called upon to name the absent person
whose form was to be made visible. I named Keate. You were not at
Eton, and I must tell you, therefore, what manner of man it was
that I named, though I think you must have some idea of him
already, for wherever from utmost Canada to Bundelcund - wherever
there was the whitewashed wall of an officer's room, or of any
other apartment in which English gentlemen are forced to kick their
heels, there likely enough (in the days of his reign) the head of
Keate would be seen scratched or drawn with those various degrees
of skill which one observes in the representations of saints.
Anybody without the least notion of drawing could still draw a
speaking, nay scolding, likeness of Keate. If you had no pencil,
you could draw him well enough with a poker, or the leg of a chair,
or the smoke of a candle. He was little more (if more at all) than
five feet in height, and was not very great in girth, but in this
space was concentrated the pluck of ten battalions. He had a
really noble voice, which he could modulate with great skill, but
he had also the power of quacking like an angry duck, and he almost
always adopted this mode of communication in order to inspire
respect.
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