“Alas, no! Like the unicorn, the family knows no female.”
“But why couldn’t she stand you?” cried Harriet.
“Think of it now. Could any woman stand me?” he asked, with a slight shrug.
“I should have thought they’d have adored you,” she cried.
“Of course they do. They can’t stand me, though. And I thoroughly sympathise with them.”
Harriet looked at him thoughtfully.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “You’re too much like Abraham’s bosom. One would feel nowhere.”
Kangaroo threw down his napkin and pushed back his chair and roared with laughter—roared and roared with laughter. The Chinese man-servant stood back perturbed. Harriet went very red—the dinner waited. Then suddenly he became quiet, looking comically at Harriet, and still sitting back from table. Then he opened his arms and held them outstretched, his head on one side.
“The way to nowhere,” he said, ironically.
She did not say any more, and he turned to the man-servant.