“No.”
“Can he play the piano?”
“No.”
Now all of these things Bradwell could do to perfecksun, so he got cheerfuller and cheerfuller.
“What can he do, then, besides jaw the kids and always sneak to the Doctor?”
“I never saw such jellousy as this,” said Mabel; “but if you must know I’ll tell you what he can do: he can write poetry out of his own head, and he has got a solid book of it reddy to print some day--there!”
I suppose Bradwell couldn’t write poetry. Anyway, he got very down in the face at this. He didn’t say anything--appeering to be frightfully shocked at what he’d heard. Then Mabel said:
“When you can quote Browning and Byron and Shelley, and write poems yourself, it will be soon enough to sneer at Mr. Browne.”
“You love him,” said Bradwell, in a very tragik voice.
“I don’t love anybody but my own family,” said Mabel; “but I admire him, and I admire his poetry, which is very much out of the common indeed.”