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Mr. Cyril Boggis
Rummins is the owner of the farm and the Chippendale Commode. He initially meets Mr. Boggis’s attempts to gain his trust with suspicion, believing Mr. Boggis is trying to take advantage of him, his neighbor Claud, and his son Bert. When Mr. Boggis casually mentions that he might be interested in buying the commode, he immediately believes that Mr. Boggis is trying to rip them off and that the commode is older than Boggis would have them believe. Although ultimately he is persuaded by Mr. Boggis’s knowledge of counterfeiting techniques (which he, Claud, and Bert are eager to hear, since it involves tricking people), Rummins still attempts to ensure that he gets as much money as possible out of Mr. Boggis by cutting up the commode. In many ways he mirrors Mr. Boggis’s own greed in the way he seeks to maximize his own profit in the situation.
Rummins Quotes in Parson’s Pleasure
The Parson’s Pleasure quotes below are all either spoken by Rummins or refer to Rummins. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Parson’s Pleasure Quotes
When the men caught sight of Mr. Boggis walking forward in his black suit and parson’s collar, they stopped talking and seemed suddenly to stiffen and freeze, becoming absolutely still, motionless, three faces turned towards him, watching him suspiciously as he approached.
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“You know what I think?” Rummins said, fixing him with his small wicked eyes. “I think you’re after buying the stuff yourself. Why else would you be going to all this trouble?”
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“Listen, Parson,” Rummins said, pointing at him with a thick dirty finger, “I’m not saying as how you may not know a fair bit about this furniture business, but what I am saying is this: How on earth can you be so mighty sure it’s a fake when you haven’t even seen what it looks like underneath all that paint?”
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“And what if it won’t go in the car?” Claud asked. “You know what I think, Mr. Rummins? You want my honest opinion? I think the bloody thing’s too big to go in the car. And then what happens? Then he’s going to say to hell with it and just drive off without it and you’ll never see him again. Nor the money either. He didn’t seem all that keen on having it, you know.”
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“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, straightening up, wiping his brow. “That was a bloody good carpenter put this job together and I don’t care what the parson says.”
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Rummins Character Timeline in Parson’s Pleasure
The timeline below shows where the character Rummins appears in Parson’s Pleasure. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Parson’s Pleasure
...piques his interest. At the third house, Mr. Boggis encounters three men outside. Two of them—Rummins and Bert—are the father and son, respectively, that live on the property; the third is...
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...Chippendale Commode. At the sight of the commode, Mr. Boggis stops dead, struck by surprise—arousing Rummins’s suspicions slightly—but plays it off as heart trouble. He recognizes the commode, even though it’s...
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...see an opportunity to make money but try and haggle Mr. Boggis upwards for more. Rummins asks his son to go fetch the bill they’d found in the back of one...
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Rummins, however, is still skeptical: he doesn’t believe that Mr. Boggis can tell anything about the...
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...though he has taken the machine-made one out of the commode and hands it to Rummins for inspection.
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...then Mr. Boggis will have no excuse not to pay and take the legs off. Rummins agrees, and the men get to work. As they cut the legs off, they see...
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...will fit in Mr. Boggis’s car, and he’ll have no excuse to not pay them. Rummins, again, agrees: Claud then destroys the commode completely. As he finishes up the work, he...
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