"There again," I said, "see how innocent you are. You don't know the vernacular."
He looked surprised.
"When you know us better," I answered, in reply to his looks, "you will understand that by that formula you ask for a drink. And as I don't happen to be under my own roof just now—"
His glorious laugh stopped me. It was like the ringing of a peal of bells.
"No matter," he said. "I may go on?"
"Certainly," I replied. "You'll have a few gray hairs in your raven locks in twelve months time,—that's all."
"What a hare," I thought as I went home, "is madness, the youth, to leap over the meshes of good counsel, the cripple." Which is not mine, but that philosopher, Will Shakespeare; or is it Francis Bacon?
CHAPTER V
A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING