“Yep,” answered Pratt, his harsh voice softening. “This is our baby.”
“Too big for me to kiss, I suppose,” said Sullivan, secretly congratulating himself that this was so. Maude bore a striking resemblance to her mother.
Mrs. Pratt acknowledged this witticism with a dry cackle, and invited the Hon. Member to stay and take pot-pourri with them. She slurred over the words cautiously, never quite certain as to the correct application of the phrase. Some people, she knew, said pot luck, but this had, to her way of thinking, a vulgar sound.
“That’s the stuff,” cried Gus. “We can go back to the House together after a bite of supper.”
“Dinner,” corrected his wife, coldly. “You’re quite all right as you are, Mr. Sullivan. None of us will dress.”
“I should hope not,” breathed the irrepressible Pratt, and drained his glass with a smack. “Sullivan’s no party.”
As it had been this gentleman’s intention to stay and talk with Mrs. Pratt, he demurred politely, calling himself an inconsiderate nuisance and other equally applicable terms. But in the end he allowed himself to be persuaded, and settled down to accomplish the object of his coming.
“It’s a great pleasure to meet a woman with so keen a sense for politics,” he remarked, speaking to Pratt but indicating his wife. Mr. Sullivan was one of the few men who could eat and talk at the same time, without seeming to give undue preference to either operation. “Our Canadian women take shockingly little interest in the life of the country.”
“Don’t blame ’em,” mumbled Pratt, struggling with a very hot potato.
“Augustus!” Between telegraphing reproach to her husband, and directing the maid in what she conceived to be the correct serving of a meal, Mrs. Pratt’s heavy eyebrows attained a bewildering flexibility. “He pretends not to take his position seriously, but leave him to me, Mr. Sullivan, leave him to me!”