“Quite fly, dad. You want me to marry her.”
“Exactly. Of course in good time.”
“But ain’t I ‘owre young to marry yet,’ as the song says?”
“Years do not count, my boy,” said his father, majestically. “If you were ten years older and a weak, foolish fellow, it would be bad; but when it is a case of a young man who is bright, clever, and who has had some experience of the world, it is different.”
Mrs Wilton, who was listening intently to her husband’s words, bowed her head, smiled approval, and looked with the pride of a mother at her unlicked cub.
But Claud’s face wrinkled up, and he looked inquiringly at his elder.
“I say, guv’nor,” he said, “does this mean chaff?”
“Chaff? Certainly not, sir,” said the father sternly. “Do I look like a man who would descend to—to—to chaff, as you slangly term it, my own son?”
“Not a bit of it, dad; but last week you told me I was the somethingest idiot you ever set eyes on.”
“Claud!”