“I'll send it to-night when I get home,” he declared, “or no, I'll send it now,” and he sat down at the minister's desk, and scribbled a note. It read: “Your friend Severn won't take anything himself for kindness to me, so he's letting me send you this for your work. Here's wishing you good luck.” This he signed and handed to the minister with a relieved air as if to say: “There! That's that!”
“You see,” said Laurie getting up and taking his hat again, “I want to come back here again and see your daughter. I may as well tell you I'm crazy about your daughter.”
“I see,” said the minister gravely, albeit with a twinkle in his eye, “The fact is I'm somewhat crazy about her myself. But in all kindness I may as well tell you that you'll be wasting your time. She isn't your kind you know.”
“Oh, well,” said Laurie with an assured shrug, “That's all right if I don't mind, isn't it?”
“Well, no,” said the minister smiling broadly now, “You forget that she might mind, you know.”
“I don't get you,” said Laurie looking puzzled as he fitted on his immaculate driving glove, “She might mind, what do you mean?”
“I mean that my daughter minds very much indeed whether her men friends ask in a certain tone of voice for something to drink at midnight, and use language such as you used when you first arrived here, smoke continual cigarettes, and have friends like the young woman who visited you last Sunday.”
“Oh! I see!” laughed Laurie thoroughly amused, “Well, after all, one doesn't have to keep on doing all those things you know—if it were worth one's while to change them.”
“I'm afraid,” said the minister still amused, “that it would have to be worth your while to change before she would even consider you as a possibility. She happens to have a few ideas about what it takes to make a man, her ideal man, you know.”
Laurie smiled gaily: