“What has your grandmother been doing?”
“She hasn’t done much, and she hasn’t said a word, but, hang it! there’s more in what Grandma doesn’t say than there is in what other women do say.”
“You’re right there, my boy.”
“Now, what did she want to go give me a latch-key for?” asked the boy, in an aggrieved tone, “just after I’d started coming in a little later than usual? Why don’t she say, ‘My dear boy, you are on the road to ruin. Staying out late is the first step. May I not beg of you to do better, my dear young grandson? Otherwise you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.’”
“This is what she didn’t say?” asked Roger, gravely.
“This is what she didn’t say,” repeated the boy, crossly, “but this is what she felt. I know her! The latch-key was a bit of tomfoolery. An extra lump of sugar in my coffee is more tomfoolery.”
“Do you want her to preach to you?”
“No,” snarled the handsome lad. “I don’t want her to preach, and I don’t want you to preach, and I don’t want my sisters to preach, but I want some one to do something for me.”
“State your case in a more businesslike way,” said the elder man, gravely. “I don’t understand.”