"Home already! are you tired?"
"No—it isn't that; but I know if I wait much longer, I shall be telling you the secret before I can stop myself. If I only could tell some one, I should be all right; so that's why I want to get home to Miles."
"But I want to call on General Colville and also to pay old Dyson a visit. Can you last a little longer, do you think?"
Humphrey was fond of society, and so took very kindly to the arrangement.
"Dyson is the old deaf man, isn't he? Was he born deaf?"
"No; it is only of late years that he has become so."
"I'm glad I wasn't born deaf. It would have been a great bore. I wonder Dyson doesn't buy an ear-trumpet."
"I suppose, poor fellow, he can't afford it."
"I should so like to give him one."
"But where's your money?"