How could the world help but love him, jolly, amiable, sensible man that he was?
But once and again . . . once and again. . . . And so it was now. And the fish that was eluding him was young Jeremy Cole.
On the seventh or eighth day he was aware of it. At breakfast he looked across the table and saw the small square-shaped boy gravely winking at Mary. Why was he winking at his sister? It could not be, surely it could not be because of anything that he himself had said? And yet, looking behind him, so to speak, he could not remember that anyone else had been talking. This was enough to make him think, and, thinking, it occurred to him that that small boy had from the very first been aloof and reserved. Not natural for small boys to be reserved with jolly uncles. And it was not as though the boy were in general a reserved child. No, he had heard him laughing and jumping about the house enough to bring the roof down. Playing around with that dog of his. . . . Quite a normal, sporting boy. Come to think of it, the best of the family. By far the best of the family. You’d never think, to look at him, that he was Herbert’s son.
Therefore after breakfast in the hall he cried in his jolly, hearty tones:
“I say, Jeremy, what do you say to taking your old uncle round the town this morning, eh? Showing him the shops and things, what? Might be something we’d like to buy. . . .”
Jeremy was half-way up the stairs. He came slowly down again. On the bottom step, looking very gravely at his uncle, he said:
“I’m very sorry, Uncle Percy, but I’m going to school to-morrow morning, and I promised mother——”
But Mrs. Cole was at this moment coming out of the dining-room. Looking up and smiling, she said:
“Never mind, Jeremy. Go with Uncle Percy this morning, dear. I can manage about the shirts. . . .”
Jeremy appeared not to have heard his mother.