What's a "bap"?

[George Thompson]

The March 13, 2009 issue of TLS carries a review of the first volume of a collection of letters by Samuel Beckett.  There is a quotation on the front cover from one of these letters:
The abominable old bap Russell duly returned my MSS with an economic note in the 3rd person, the whole in a considerably understamped envelope.

It seems that this letter was written in 1929; it's quoted more fully in the review.  I assume that the Russell in question is George Russell, the man of letters who signed himself AE.

The admirable new Chambers Slang Dictionary doesn't contain a "bap" with an applicable meaning.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org