"Well, what is it now?" she asked impatiently, with another thrust of the hat pin forceful enough to seem to the uninitiated very dangerous.
"Well," he pushed both hands far down in his pockets and took an aimless step to and fro, his red face overcast and crestfallen with the sense of being thought a fool, and such a realisation of his own immaturity as prevented the recouping satisfaction of a full faith in himself. "I found that that fellow Lloyd would be here a little while waiting for remittances—it seems the whole show came very near being stranded, and, like the captain of a sinking ship, he is the last to leave. Well, it seemed no great absurdity to me, as he is a first-class, all-round professional athlete, such as I am not likely to meet again in a hurry, to ask him to give me a few lessons in boxing. I'm bound to have exercise, and a punchbag is such a lonesome fool!"
Mrs. Laniston evidently did not see the point as yet. The hat adjusted at last, she began to pull on her black silk gloves over her rather bony jewelled fingers, gazing the while into the mirror, to which reflection he addressed his appeal.
"Do you see anything extraordinary in that project?"
"Except the expense of coming from and going to New Helvetia," she replied a little wonderingly. "I always did think the monopoly of that hack line ought to be put down. The charges are extortionate—it is practically impossible to go back and forth as one might like to do in excursions about the country if rates were reasonable."
"Why, that is what I told the fellow—that I could better afford the price of the lessons if he were waiting at New Helvetia, instead of here in Colbury."
"And then?" Mrs. Laniston was very dense; she did not yet perceive the point.
"Then Lloyd inquired as to the hotel rates at New Helvetia, and when he found they were lower at this season than the charges for transient guests at this place he said that he had no objection to going to New Helvetia—that it would be a change for him, and that he was fed up with Colbury."
"See here, Frank, you are developing a gift for oratory. Why don't you come to the point, if there is any point?" Mrs. Laniston, who herself could hold forth so volubly and with such a flow of well-considered words, admonished him.
"Why, it seemed such an advantageous arrangement; he said, first off, that he could give much better value for the money. He could coach me, too, for the track team—it seems he was once a short-distance sprinter—free of charge. He said we could just run up and down the roads for fun, if they were as good as I said. And then we could have a few bouts with the foils, once in a while—he took a prize for fencing once in an athletic contest—showed me the medal. And I'm getting so fat!" Frank's voice rose to a dreary plaint. "I was perfectly scandalised this morning when I stepped on the public scales on the other side of the square——"