Fibble, D.D

A wounded sense of dignity drives Reverend Roscoe Titmarsh Fibble to explain his unhappy experience organising a band of young forest rangers. Doctor Tubley has asked him to work with the boys of St. Barnabas', but Fibble's proposed evenings of indoor nature study and improving poetry meet with little encouragement. His superior believes the boys need action, while Fibble recalls his own bookish childhood as a model of proper behaviour.

Irvin S. Cobb gives this curate three episodes, presented as a public statement, an open letter and diary extracts. The comedy grows from Fibble's formal language, social pretensions and faith in his own judgment. During a visit to the Louvre, he takes over the guide's duties and supplies lengthy explanations, then discovers that his young companions have left to buy gloves. His anxious search and confused walk back to the hotel turn a lesson in art into a test of practical sense. Readers can enjoy a comic portrait of authority undermined by ordinary mishaps.