From my heart of hearts I sound it,—
I have lost my silk umbrella,
I would like to catch the fella.”
Everybody laughed; but Harold thought the verses silly and uninteresting, and full of vain repetitions; and he wondered that grown-up men and women could waste their time upon such trivialities.
On their way home he took his father to task. “Of course you didn’t mean the things you said in that lady’s house?” he began.
“Why? Did I say anything I hadn’t oughter?”
Harold frowned in wonder at his father’s grammar, and replied severely, “You said a good many things that you couldn’t have meant You said a lie in time saves nine. You said consistency is the last refuge of a scoundrel. You said a lot of things that I can’t remember, but which seemed to me rather queer.”
“Oh, we’re a dreadfully frisky set, you know,” Weir explained. Then he turned aside for an instant, to get rid of an importunate hansom, that had sauntered after them for a hundred yards, the driver raining invitations upon them from his “dicky.”—“No, I won’t be driven. I’ll be led, but I won’t be driven,” he said, resolutely. “You’ll get accustomed to us, though,” he continued, addressing his son.
“Do you mean to say the people of your set are always like that? Why, there wasn’t a single person there that you could converse with seriously about anything.”
“I didn’t want to, I’m sure,” his father protested.