“And what have you been doing with yourself all this time?” he said.
“We’ll come to that,” I answered. “I want to hear about you first.”
“About me!” he said, surprised. “O! there’s nothing to tell. Daddy made it all right for me, you know. He was ‘Grafto’—you remember that? What a man he was, to be sure—old daddy! His ‘Grafto’ would put a hair-spring into a watch, they used to say. He was a Government analyst when he invented it; and afterwards he became a person. I never knew, Dick, until he died, that he’d worn a wig himself for years.” He looked at me tragically. “Wasn’t that awful? And I inherited ‘Grafto’!”
“How did you like Oxford?” I said.
“O, bully!” he answered. “But I wasn’t there long. There was the estate to take up, you see; and mamma wanted me. She’s the only woman who ever did.”
“O! I can’t believe that.”
“Can’t you? I don’t know what keeps me laughing so. O, the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells! Hullo, Dick! I say, ain’t you fond of poetry?”
“Just.”
“So am I; especially Christmas carols, they’re so comforting. Look here, why did you never answer any of my letters?”
“What letters? I’ve never had a line from you that I know!”