“That’s very nice of you,” said the man, and when he smiled he looked quite young. “I am sure the pleasure is mutual.”
“I’ve something most pertickler to ask you,” continued Basil eagerly, scrambling out of the pool to sit on the rock beside him, “and it seemed as if I was never to get a chance. It’s not for myself either, it’s for Viola—you know Viola by sight, I daresay?”
Now it happened that the jokey man, like most other people in that village, knew Viola by sight very well indeed. In fact, Viola, and the General, and Basil, were as speedily pointed out to every stranger who arrived as though they had been bits of scenery. For they came every summer and the village was proud of them.
“Is she your sister?” asked the jokey man, suddenly taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“Yes, and she’s two year older than me, but she doesn’t go to school—I’ve been for a year—she has a ma’mselle. I daresay you’ve seen us with her. It’s been such a bore having her here, but she’s going to-morrow, and then we shall do just what we like, for there will be only Harnet and Polly, and we like them. Grannie had to go off quite suddenly to nurse Aunt Alice, and won’t be back for a week, so there’ll be nobody but grandfather and us; it’ll be simply ripping,” and Basil paused breathless, beaming at the pleasant picture he had conjured up.
The jokey man put his pipe back into his mouth and waited; but it had gone out, so he just laid it on the rocks beside him, saying:
“What was it you wanted to ask me?”
“It’s rather difficult to explain,” Basil began, turning very red and rumpling his hair. “It’s Viola, you know; she wants so dreadfully to come to your entertainment. I’ve told her about it, you know, but grandfather says——” Here Basil paused, and turned even redder than before: “One has to be so particular over one’s girls, you know,” he interpolated apologetically, “and she’s the only girl in our family. Grandfather never had any sisters or any daughters, so he thinks no end of Viola, and father and mother are in India, and he says——”
“That some of the songs are vulgar,” said the jokey man shortly. “So they are; he’s perfectly right.”
The jokey man looked at Basil, and Basil looked at the jokey man for a full minute. Then the little boy said very earnestly: