"Buy that too. Get a dozen if you like."
"Thanks, I will. I believe you just said the engagement dates from to-day?"
"Rather. I was going to tell you, I must have an aunt by this evening. She arrives from Scotland, you know."
"With her dog. That's easy."
"I hope the girls like dogs."
"They do if they're nice girls."
"They're enchanting girls, one English, one American. I adore both: that's why I'm a desperate man where an aunt's concerned. To produce an aunt is my one hope of enjoying their society on the motor-boat trip I wrote you about. I wouldn't do this thing if I weren't desperate, and even desperate as I am, I wouldn't do it if I couldn't have got an all-right kind of aunt, an aunt that—that——"
"That an unimpeachable American Consul could vouch for. I assure you, Nephew, you ought to think of a woman like me as of—of a ram caught in the bushes."
"I'm willing to think of you in that way, if it's not offensive. The Consul didn't go into particulars——"
"That was unnecessary."