“Of course you can.”
“May I give him a regular sort of invitation from you, then?”
“Yes, rather. Tell him that I and Percy ask him to come and live here from to-morrow morning for the rest of his natural life. Or, if that doesn’t seem cordial enough, we’ll adopt him as our only son.”
“Oh no! I think that’s too much.”
“Is it? Well, make it from to-morrow afternoon. Or perhaps we’d better not be effusive; it wouldn’t look well. So, instead of that, I’ll invite him to go to the Zoological Gardens on Sunday fortnight for an hour, and you and he can have buns and tea at your own expense there. That’s not too hospitable and gushing, is it?”
He laughed.
“You do look smart, Bertha!” he remarked. “Your shoes are always so frightfully right. I say, can’t you tell mother to wear the same sort of shoes? And tell her to look narrower, and not have such high collars.”
“My dear boy, your mother dresses beautifully,” said Bertha. “What do you want her to look like?”
“I should like her to look like some of those little cards on cigarette boxes, or like a picture post-card, if you want to know,” he admitted candidly.
“That’s absurd, Cliff.”