Confessions of an Actor [antikvár]

Chapter One How It Began For my father, saving was a craving. This is no idle jingle but the plainest statement of fact. He had, of course, many run-of-the-mill opportunities to indulge this obsession. At the end of every month a feast awaited him as bills came flooding in. We did enjoy the luxury of toilet rolls, though we were encouraged and constantly reminded to be as sparing as possible in their use; and there were always the daily commodities to be examined with a keen master's eye: gas, coal, light, heat, butcher, baker, grocer, fishmonger, greengrocer, wine merchant - he was insistent on his glass of port at the end of lunch or dinner. For a while after Christmas there would be the occasional thimbleful of cherry brandy and an occasional whisky (Black and White always) for the occasional visitor; there was always a small barrel of ale in the cellar/silver-cleaning/lamp-cleaning room, of which a limited amount was allowed to my brother and me. One of the more obvious manifestations of what I am afraid we may as well call parsimony was apparent in the size of his helpings at meal-dmes. He was a brilliant carver - he used to say that parsons' sons always made the best carvers. His own father was a parson's son too, though he had enjoyed considerably ampler means, living under the protection of the wealth that seems to have come by nature to most families of gentlefolk born in the last century. My father, being the youngest son of a youngest son (eight in his family, ten in my grandfather's), naturally came off worse than anyone to date. His gift for carving was extraordinary and I am lucky enough to inherit a share of it, though not with a like driving sense of economy -at least I sincerely trust not. It was fascinating to watch the rare delicacy with which he performed his task; he would cut three razor-thin slices of meat, laid beautifully with one slice half-covering another, then make you feel richly provided for in the extreme by saying with purring