"I would like fine," he once said to me, "to stand up in your place and answer these questions for you."
"I wish you could, Robin," I sighed. "And," I added, "I believe you will some day."
Robin turned pink, for the first time in our acquaintance, and I heard his teeth click suddenly together.
So the wind lay that way!
II.
During the next year my household was furnished with three surprises, Dilly contributing one and Robin two.
Robin's came first. One was his uncle, the other his book.
One night it fell to my lot to dine in the City, as the guest of the Honourable Company of Tile-Glazers and Mortar-Mixers. As I swam forlornly through a turgid ocean of turtle-soup and clarified punch towards an unyielding continent of fish, irrigated by brown sherry, mechanically rehearsing to myself the series of sparkling yet statesmanlike epigrams with which I proposed to reply to the toast of his Majesty's Ministers I became aware that the gentleman on my left was addressing me in a voice that seemed vaguely familiar.
"And how is my brother's second boy doing with you, Mr Inglethwaite?"