“Ah!” said my mother.
“It doesn’t suit me,” said my uncle. “I’m the cascading sort.”
“George was that,” said my mother after a pondering moment.
My aunt Susan took up the parable with an affectionate glance at her husband.
“He’s always trying to make his old business jump,” she said. “Always putting fresh cards in the window, or getting up to something. You’d hardly believe. It makes ME jump sometimes.”
“But it does no good,” said my uncle.
“It does no good,” said his wife. “It’s not his miloo...”
Presently they came upon a wide pause.
From the beginning of their conversation there had been the promise of this pause, and I pricked my ears. I knew perfectly what was bound to come; they were going to talk of my father. I was enormously strengthened in my persuasion when I found my mother’s eyes resting thoughtfully upon me in the silence, and than my uncle looked at me and then my aunt. I struggled unavailingly to produce an expression of meek stupidity.
“I think,” said my uncle, “that George will find it more amusing to have a turn in the market-place than to sit here talking with us. There’s a pair of stocks there, George—very interesting. Old-fashioned stocks.”