"I suppose it does look a little like that to Elizabeth," he said. "She's used to thinking of me as being about as old as that kind of relative gets to be."
"Grandfather's whole life is spent in teasing me," Elizabeth said, "it's bread and butter and pie and cake to him."
"By the way, Father, where is your pie this morning? I didn't know that you ever started the day without it, but I don't see it on the table."
"Now, I am going to tell something on Father," Grandmother said, slyly. "He ain't had a piece o' pie for his breakfast since Elizabeth come, and he wouldn't let me put none on the table, either."
"I was afraid she'd get to making it the way she makes cake, and I'd have to eat it whether or no." Grandfather mopped his brow with a great show of vigour.
"It warn't that," Grandmother smiled. "He was just sprucing up for his city granddaughter a little. He went down street and got two new neckties and a white cotton vest before she'd been here a week. He had to kind of jerk Elizabeth down a peg and jerk himself up several to meet her."
"Why, Granddaddy Swift," Elizabeth said, "have you been going without your breakfast pie on my account?"
"Who said breakfast pie?" a gaunt figure in khaki appeared in the doorway, and Elizabeth, with one admonishing finger still uplifted, turned from her grandfather and with one leap hurled herself upon it. "I'm going to get out of these clothes to-morrow," Buddy continued, calmly, holding his sister off with one hand, "but I have forgotten how to get into regular trousers before breakfast. Emerson, the well-known sage of Concord, used to eat pie for his breakfast—pumpkin pie, and it goes very well with coffee."
"Grandfather won't let me have so much as a snitch of coffee," Elizabeth pouted, still clinging to him.
"Not even a demi-tassy," Grandfather put in, slyly.