“I'll tell you what I've done if you'll only sit down.”
She went to the seat.
“Now laugh, Mary. You simply must laugh. I can't tell you while you look like that. Laugh, or I shall tickle you.”
She laughed merrily—over her first bewilderment. “But, Georgie, it's something fearful that you've done, isn't it?”
He sat beside her; took her hands. “It's terrific. Look here. From the beginning. When I told old Marrapit I'd passed my exam. I asked for that 500 pounds—you know—to start us.”
She nodded.
“He refused. He got in an awful state at the bare idea. I asked him to lend it—he got worse. Mary, he simply would not give or advance a penny: you know what that meant?”
The dejected droop of her mouth gave answer.
“Well, then, I concocted a plot. Old Wyvern helped me—Professor Wyvern, you know. I thought that if I took his cat, his beloved Rose, and lay low with her for a bit, he would—”
“Oh, George!”