"Would you?" say I, a little piqued. "I do not think you would: I assure you that my face can tell stories, at a pinch, as well as its neighbor."
"Well, would it bore you?"
"Not at all! not at all!" reply I briskly, beginning to descend again; "but one thing is very certain, and that is that it will bore you."
"Why should it?"
"If I say what I was going to say you will think that it is on purpose to be contradicted," I answer, unlatching the gate in the fence, and entering the park.
"And if I do, much you will mind," he answers, smiling.
"Well, then," say I, candidly, looking down at my feet as they trip quickly along through the limp winter grass, "there is no use blinking the fact that I have no conversation—none of us have. We can gabble away among ourselves like a lot of young rooks, about all sorts of silly home jokes, that nobody but us would see any fun in; but when it comes to real talk—"
I pause expressively.
"I do not care for real talk," he says, looking amused; "I like gabble far, far better. I wish you would gabble a little now."
But the request naturally ties my tongue tight up.