"Dora Hastings!"
And eager, innocent Dora hastened to make answer:
"Mamma, he can make the two t's; the capital and the other, you know; and he has them both on this piece of paper. Just see, mamma."
"Say, now," interrupted Tode, "I've decided to do them all. You learn me, will you? I'm to come up here every night after this with the seven o'clock mail. Just you make a letter on a paper for me, the big fellow, and the little one, you know, and I'll work at it off and on the next day, and have it ready for you at night. Will you do it? Come now."
Pliny raised himself on one elbow, his face full of interest:
"Take a figure, Tode, with your letters; figures are a great deal sharper than letters. I'll make one a night for you."
"All right," said Tode. "I don't mind working in a figure now and then. A fellow might need to use 'em."
"Mamma," said Dora, "may I? I should so love to; it would be real teaching, you know. He is fifteen years old, and he don't know how to write, and it won't take one little minute of my time. Oh please yes, mamma."
What could the elegant Mrs. Hastings say? What was there to say to so simple, original, yet so absurd a request? Still she was annoyed, and looked it, but she did not speak it, and Tode was not sensitive to looks, or words either, for that matter, and moved with a brisker, more business-like step back to the hotel, and someway felt an inch taller, for was he not to have a new letter and a figure every evening, and did he not know how to make two t's?
