"'Climb in the front seat, dad,' I says. 'It's me and Nance to the private box. Turn on the juice,' I says to the driver.
"Well, sir, we burned up all the grease in the box lookin' up the old neighbors and the places we used to visit with horse and buggy—and every time I spoke to the old man I called him 'Dad'—and finally we fetched up at the biggest hotel in the town and had dinner together.
"Then I says: 'Dad, you better lay down and snooze. Nance and me are goin' out for a walk.'
"The town had swelled up some, but one or two of the old stores was there, and as we walked past the windows I says: 'Remember the time we stood here and wished we could buy things?'
"She kind o' laughed. 'I don't believe I do.'
"'Yes, you do,' I says. 'Well, we can look now to some account, for I've got nineteen thousand dollars in the bank and a payin' lease on a mine.'"
Up to this minute he had been fairly free to express his real feelings—hypnotized by my absorbed gaze—but now, like most Anglo-Saxons, he began to shy. He began to tell of a fourteen-dollar suit of clothes (bought at this store) which turned green in the hot sun.
"Oh, come now!" I insisted, "I want to know about Nancy. All this interests me deeply. Did she agree to come back with you?"
He looked a little bit embarrassed. "I asked her to—right there in front of that window. I said, 'I want you to let me buy you that white dress.'
"'Judas priest! I can't let you do that,' she says.