‘Hum. What would you like me to call you?’
Severely, ‘It isn’t what would I like. But I daresay your mother would beam if you called me “dear father.”’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You know quite well that you think so, Roger.’
‘It’s so effeminate.’
‘Not if you say it casually.’
With something very like a snort Roger asks, ‘How does one say a thing like that casually?’
‘Well, for instance, you could whistle while you said it—or anything of that sort.’
‘Hum. Of course you—if we were to—be like that, you wouldn’t do anything.’
‘How do you mean?’