"Stop that, Chick; I think you're real mean! You made me enough trouble at the dinner table, and you needn't make fun of my friends behind their backs."
"But Patty, such backs! I mean, such friends! Oh, I didn't think I could restrain my laughter till they went away from here,—but I managed to do so. Souls! Rusty souls! Wowly-wow-wow!"
"Chick, stop it. I tell you, I won't have it!"
"I'll stop in a minute, Patty. Let me laugh a minute, or I'll explode.
I say, Mrs. Fairfield, did you ever see anything like the lady's robe!
I don't often notice costumes of the fair sex, but that was a hummer
from Humville."
"Don't, Chick," said Nan, noticing Patty's quivering lip; "they're
Patty's friends, and I'd rather you wouldn't ridicule them."
"I'd rather not myself, honest, Mrs. Fairfield, I'd rather not, but what can you do when they come running up, begging to be ridiculed?"
"They didn't," declared Patty. "Nobody would have thought of ridiculing them, Chick, if you hadn't. They talked a lot of wisdom that you couldn't assimilate, and you're envious of their superior minds, that's what ails you."
"Patty, Patty," said her father, laughing outright at this, "my dear child, are you really so infatuated with those people that you believe what you're saying?"
"Of course, I am. I don't expect you to understand them, Father, you're older, and belong to another generation."
"Good gracious, Patty," cried Nan, gasping, "do you think your father is too old to understand that drivel?"