“Now, Ramsay, that’s where you and I differ. You’re a slow Moses. I want to move ahead a trifle in front of the times. I’ve been looking all over the dictionary of my daily life, and I can’t find such a word as ‘wait’ in it.”
“Let me give you some of this steak, brother.”
“My plan of operations, Ramsay, is—”
“Why,” said Mrs Broadbent, “you haven’t eaten anything yet!”
“I thought,” said Uncle Ramsay, “you were as hungry as a Tipperary Highlander, or some such animal.”
“My plan, Ramsay, is—” etc, etc.
The two “etc, etc’s” in the last line stand for all the rest of the honest Squire’s speech, which, as his sailor brother said, was as long as the logline. But for all his hunger he made but a poor breakfast, and immediately after he jumped up and hurried away to the barn-yards.
It was a busy time for the next two weeks at Burley Old Farm, but, to the Squire’s credit be it said, he was pretty successful with his strange operation of drying wheat independent of the sun. His ricks were built, and he was happy—happy as long as he thought nothing about the expense. But he did take an hour or two one evening to run through accounts, as he called it. Uncle Ramsay was with him.
“Why, brother,” said Ramsay, looking very serious now indeed, “you are terribly down to leeward—awfully out of pocket!”
“Ah! never mind, Ramsay. One can’t keep ahead of the times now-a-days, you know, without spending a little.”