"Quarter to ten," he said. "A bit late to begin a job of that magnitude to-night, isn't it? Are you going to apply personally, or by letter?"
"What's that?" enquired Timothy, emerging from a rapturous reverie.
Philip repeated the question.
"Letter?" exclaimed Tim with infinite scorn—"a letter? Write? Write a letter? My sainted aunt, write?" He gazed indignantly upon the automaton before him that called itself a man. "My dear old relic of the Stone Age—"
"In the Stone Age," observed the relic, "they couldn't write."
Timothy made reference to the Stone Age which was neither seemly nor relevant, and continued:—
"Do you expect me to sit down and write—write to her—upon such a subject as that? Write—with a three-and-nine-penny fountain pen, on Silurian notepaper at a shilling a packet? It's not done, dear old soul; it's simply not done!"
Timothy, carefully hitching up the knees of his faultlessly creased trousers, lowered himself on to the sofa, the picture of reproachful scorn.
"If it takes you that way," replied the unruffled Philip, "why not use cream-laid vellum and a gold nib?"
Timothy merely made an alarming noise at the back of his neck.