“Huh!” and Miss Prall looked at him sharply; for he had been known to express satirical sentiments under guise of suavity. “Don’t waste your solicitude on her! She, too, is able to look out for herself.”
“It would seem so, since she has taken part for twenty years in what is still a drawn battle.”
“Let up, Oldsters,” laughed young Bates, coming breezily into the room. “You know the main facts of the historic Feud, Uncle Herbert, and, take it from me, sir, no amount of argument or advice on your part will help, or in any way affect it. Aunt Letty will eat up your talk, and then floor you with——”
“Floor me! I think not! Binney, of Binney’s Buns, is not of the floorable variety.”
“You say that because you haven’t yet really met Auntie Let in the arena. Binney’s Buns would cut no better figure than,—let us say, Crippen’s Cakes.”
“Crippen’s Cakes! Do you know Crippen?”
“Does she!” and Richard Bates grinned; “why, the Cake Crippen is one of Aunt Letitia’s old beaux,—might have been my uncle, if——”
“Hush, Richard!” said the aunt.
“If he hadn’t also shined up to Mrs Everett, the rival faction.” Richard went on, with open relish of his aunt’s discomfiture.
“Hush, Richard!” she said, again, and this time some veiled hint apparently was efficacious, for he changed the subject.