“Never.”
“He is wonderful at expressing himself. He wrote a book called 'The Secret Solved; or, Letter-writing Made Easy.' It gives you models of all sorts of letters.”
Ida burst out laughing. “So you actually copied one.”
“It was to invite a young lady to a picnic, but I set to work and soon got it changed so that it would do very well. Slattery seems never to have asked any one to ride a tandem. But when I had written it, it seemed so dreadfully stiff that I had to put a little beginning and end of my own, which seemed to brighten it up a good deal.”
“I thought there was something funny about the beginning and end.”
“Did you? Fancy your noticing the difference in style. How quick you are! I am very slow at things like that. I ought to have been a woodman, or game-keeper, or something. I was made on those lines. But I have found something now.”
“What is that, then?”
“Ranching. I have a chum in Texas, and he says it is a rare life. I am to buy a share in his business. It is all in the open air—shooting, and riding, and sport. Would it—would it inconvenience you much, Ida, to come out there with me?”
Ida nearly fell off her perch in her amazement. The only words of which she could think were “My goodness me!” so she said them.
“If it would not upset your plans, or change your arrangements in any way.” He had slowed down and let go of the steering handle, so that the great machine crawled aimlessly about from one side of the road to the other. “I know very well that I am not clever or anything of that sort, but still I would do all I can to make you very happy. Don't you think that in time you might come to like me a little bit?”