“He doesn’t look like a poet, does he? I mean their pictures.”
“No. Davy looks more like a man. Now I’d make a good understudy to Shakespeare; don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, drawing up her knees and clasping her hands about them. “You’re almost too fat. Besides, I haven’t read Shakespeare, and only one letter that you wrote, and that wasn’t poetry.”
“You’ll forgive me for that, won’t you?” said Bascomb.
“Perhaps. I looked up ‘Cyclops,’ but I didn’t tell father what it meant.”
“Well, you’re the frankest creature! Great Scott! I feel like a worm.”
“I didn’t want to make you feel like that,” said Swickey. “I just said what was so.”
“And therein lies your bright particular charm, mademoiselle,” replied Bascomb, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “Don’t you want to walk down to the river and hear it gargle?”
“No—not the river—”
“I forgot, Swickey.”