“Well, if you find it even and monotonous to be doing good all your time,” he observed, “I can only say that I wish a few more people would indulge in monotony! But don’t you mean to have a change?”
“Oh, I have provided a little distraction for myself,” said Miss Letty, smiling demurely; “I have got a young man to stay with me for a few days.”
“Young man!” exclaimed the Major. “Well, upon my word——” here he stopped short, for at that moment Boy, attired in his best suit of white flannel, his face shining with recent ablutions, and his golden hair brushed into a shining aureole of curls round his brow, trotted into the room with a cheerful confidence and assertiveness quite wonderful to see.
“Ullo, Major!” he exclaimed: “Zoo tum to see Boy?”
Major Desmond rose to the occasion at once.
“Of course!” he said, and lifting Boy in his arms he set him on his broad shoulder. “Of course I have come to see you! Impossible to keep away knowing you to be here!”
Boy chuckled.
“Me tum to stay wiz Kiss-Letty,” he announced.
“So I perceive,” replied the Major—and turning to Miss Leslie he said, “This is the young man, eh, Letty? Well, however did you manage to get hold of him?”
“I will tell you all about it at dinner,” she answered in a low tone. “You will stay and dine?”