“All right, I’m willing to play a tricky game, then!”
“You are, son! Against whom?”
And the pair entering the wide doorway, met Sir Herbert Binney coming out.
“Oh, hello, Uncle,” cried Bates, grasping the situation with both hands. “Let me present you to Miss Everett; Dorcas, this is my uncle.”
“How do you do, Uncle Bunny?” said Dorcas, quite unwitting that, in her surprised embarrassment, she had used the very word she had feared she would utter!
And an unfortunate mistake it proved. The smiling face of the Englishman grew red and wrathful, assuming, as he did, and not without cause, that the young woman intended to guy him.
“Daughter of your own mother, hey?” he said to her. “Ready with a sharp tongue for any occasion!”
Apology was useless, all that quick-witted Dorcas could think of was to carry it off as a jest.
“No, sir,” she said, with an adorable glance of coquetry at the angry face, “but I have an unbreakable habit of using nicknames,—and as I’ve heard of you from Ricky, and I almost feel as if I knew you,—I, why, I just naturally called you Bunny for a pet name.”
“Oho, you did! Well, I can’t believe that. I think you’re making fun of my trade! And that’s the one thing I won’t stand! Perhaps when your precious Ricky depends on those same buns for his daily food, you won’t feel so scornful of them!”