“You always say just the right thing, don’t you?” She laughed. “How do you manage it?”
“Long practice, my dear young lady. When you’ve lived as long as I have you will have discovered that it is much better to say the right thing than the wrong—even when the right thing isn’t altogether right.”
“Yes, I reckon so, but—sometimes it’s an awful temptation to say the wrong, isn’t it? Are you awfully old? May I guess?”
“I shall be flattered.”
“Then—forty?”
Winthrop sighed loudly.
“Too much? Wait! Thirty—thirty-seven?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Is that very old? I shall be eighteen in a few days.”