'It isn't her room; it's your room. At least, it's the spare room.'
'Have you done any harm to the mandolin?'
He paused a little, as he often did before answering, as if in absence of mind, and then said, as though starting up from a reverie:
'Er—no. No harm.'
'Well, what have you done?'
'I can mend it,' he answered.
'Madame Frabelle has been very kind to you, Archie. I'm sorry you're not behaving nicely to a guest in your mother's house. It isn't the act of a gentleman.'
'Oh. Well, there are a great many things in her room, Mother; some of them are rather jolly.'
'Go and say you're sorry, Archie. And you mustn't do it again.'
'Will it be the act of a gentleman to say I'm sorry? It'll be the act of a story-teller, you know.'