"I do not feel able to pay more than twenty dollars," said Mrs. Hoffman.
"That is too little. I'll split the difference and say twenty-two and a half. I suppose you have no other children?"
"I have one other—a boy of eight."
"Then I don't think I should be willing to let you the rooms," said the landlady, her manner changing. "I don't like to take young children."
"He is a very quiet boy."
"No boys of eight are quiet," said the landlady decidedly. "They are all noisy and troublesome."
"Jimmy is never noisy or troublesome," said Mrs. Hoffman, resenting the imputation upon her youngest boy.
"Of course you think so, as you are his mother," rejoined the landlady. "You may be mistaken, you know."
"Perhaps you object to me also," said Paul. "I am more noisy than my little brother."
"I look upon you as a young man," said the landlady—a remark at which Paul felt secretly complimented.