"What edge are you?"

I was silent. I did not understand the question.

"What edge are you?" he repeated.

I was not so sure this time that I had heard aright. Possibly he had used other words, but his speech sounded to me as if he said, "What edge are you?"

I thought he was meaning to ask my age.

I replied, "Twenty-one." My voice was strange to me.

"You mean the twenty-first?" he asked.

"I am in my twenty-second," I said.

"The twenty-second what?" said he.

"Year," said I, greatly astonished.