"Essie, would you like to be rich?"
"Oo, wouldn't I just!"
"What would you say if I was rich, Essie?"
Essie turned away from the coveted sunshade and laughed delightedly at him. "Goodness, wouldn't it be funny! I'd say what ho! What ho!"
"Essie, I want to tell you something. I am rich. I'm what you'd call very rich."
"Picked up a shilling, have you?" cried Essie, gleefully entering into the game. "Let's go into the bank and invest it!"
"No, we'll go in here," said Mr. Wriford, the contents of a bookseller's window they had reached giving him a sudden idea. "We'll go in here. I'll show you something."
She caught his arm as he stepped towards the door. "Whatever do you mean?"
He answered her very intensely, "Essie, be serious. I've a lot to tell you to-night. First of all, I'm rich, I've only been pretending all the time I've been down here. My name's not Arthur at all. It's Philip—"
Essie made a laughing grimace. "Ur! Philip's like skim milk."