“Why are you one?”
“To pay a bet,” Austin replied, so promptly that his two hearers laughed.
“He’s crazy,” said Patty to Sir Otho; “I never heard such talk!”
“He’s a humorist, my dear child; you don’t know his language.”
“A humorist?” said Patty, turning to Austin with simple inquiry on her pretty face. “I thought you were a poet.”
Austin flashed an amused look at Sir Otho, and then looking at Patty, he said, in a smooth, even voice:
“‘The force of Nature could no further go,—To make myself she joined the other two.’”
“I do understand your language,” cried Patty, gaily, “that’s in Bartlett,—and it says, ‘Under Mr. Milton’s Picture’!”
“Oh, my dear Patty,” said Sir Otho, “is your poetical knowledge bounded by Bartlett?”