Lute looked relieved. “Oh, THEN!” he said. “I thought you meant lately. Well, I'm rakin' it, ain't I? Say, Ros,” he added, eagerly, “did you go to the post-office when you was uptown? Was there a letter there for you?”
“What makes you think there was?”
“Asa Peters' boy, the bow-legged one, told me. The chauffeur, the feller that pilots the automobiles, asked him where the post-office was and he see the address on the envelope. He said the letter was for you. I told him he was lyin'—”
“What in the world did you tell him that for?” I interrupted. I had known Lute a long time, but he sometimes surprised me, even yet.
“'Cause he is, nine times out of ten,” replied Lute, promptly. “You never see such a young-one for dodgin' the truth. Why, one time he told his grandmother, Asa's ma, I mean, that—”
“What did he say about the letter?”
“Said 'twas for you. And the chauffeur said Mr. Colton told him to mail it right off. 'Twan't for you, was it, Ros?”
“Yes.”
“It WAS! Well, by time! What did a man like Mr. Colton write to you about?”
Among his other lackings Lute was conspicuously short of tact. This was no time for him to ask me such a question, especially to emphasize the “you.”