“I know you could and I wish you’d write it for me, or make an outline for me to copy. Will you?” Rex said.
“Heavens and earth!” Colin replied. “Do you expect an old man like me to dictate your love-letters? Plunge in and say something like this: ‘My dear Irene, I ought to have spoken to you before, but I am such a coward and I did not know how you felt, or if your pulse beat in unison with mine.’”
This beating of the pulse seemed to be a favorite theme with Colin, who went on: “‘I refer, of course, to Sandy McPherson’s will, in which it is proposed that we marry each other. You know about it. Colin McPherson sent you a copy, and if you are willing to accede to its conditions, I am, and I herewith make you a formal offer of my heart and hand. Please answer by return mail. Yours lovingly,
Reginald Travers.
“‘P. S. I hope your brother is better!’”
“There! How is that? It is not too hifalutin’ for a starter.”
Colin was perspiring nearly as much as Rex with his efforts at composition, which Reginald heard in a vague kind of way, with a sense of the ludicrousness of the affair.
“Thanks,” he said, when Colin had finished. “I think I can go on now and write something she will understand.”
He turned to his desk, while Colin left the room, thinking to himself, “Good fellow, but dum fool in some things; don’t know what to say to that girl.”
Meanwhile Rex had selected his fourth sheet of paper, which he must make answer his purpose. He didn’t say “My dear Irene,” but simply “Miss Burdick,” forgetting the dear until he was well under way, and would not begin again. Neither did he say anything about her pulse beating in unison with his, but he went straight at the subject of the will, saying he was ready to fulfil his part of it if she were and apologizing for not having spoken of it before.