“Because you have something on your mind. You have not laughed once.”
He broke into a gruesome laugh. “I am quite jolly,” said he.
“Oh, no, you are not. And why did you write me such a dreadfully stiff letter?”
“There now,” he cried, “I was sure it was stiff. I said it was absurdly stiff.”
“Then why write it?”
“It wasn't my own composition.”
“Whose then? Your aunt's?”
“Oh, no. It was a person of the name of Slattery.”
“Goodness! Who is he?”
“I knew it would come out, I felt that it would. You've heard of Slattery the author?”