“Just as you like,” Michael said.
“Well, I’m on for a drink. It’s easier to talk down at the Shades than in here.”
Michael wondered why, but he accepted a cigar, and with Trimble sought the speech-compelling Shades.
“It’s like this,” Trimble began, when they were seated on the worn leather of the corner lounge. “I took a fancy to you right off. Eh, I’m from the North, and I may be a bit blunt, but by gum I liked you, and that’s how it is. Yes. I’m going to talk to you the same as I might to my own brother, only I haven’t got one.”
Michael looked a little apprehensive of the sack of confidences that would presently be emptied over his head, and, seeking perhaps to turn Trimble from his intention, asked him to guess his age.
“Well, I suppose you’re anything from twenty-two to twenty-three.”
Michael choked over his lemon-and-dash before he announced grimly that he was seventeen.
“Get out,” said Trimble sceptically. “You’re more than that. Seventeen? Eh, I wouldn’t have thought it. Never mind, I said I was going to tell you. And by gum I will, if you say next you haven’t been weaned.”
Michael resented the freedom of this expression and knitted his eyebrows in momentary distaste.
“It’s like this,” Mr. Trimble began again, “I made up my mind to-day that Kath’s the lass for me. Now am I right? That’s what I want to ask you. Am I right?”