"Bobby," say I, correcting him. "But you are not quite right; the Brat will not be there!—worse luck—he is in Paris!"
"Well, Barbara will not be in Paris," says the young man, still in the same discontented, pettish voice. "She will be there, no doubt—well to the front—in the thickest of the osculations."
"That she will!" cry I, heartily. "But you must give up calling her Barbara; that is not at all pretty manners."
"We will make a bargain," he says, beginning to smile a little, but rather as if it were against his will and intention. "I will allow her to call me 'Frank,' if she will allow me to call her 'Barbara.'"
"I dare say you will" (laughing).
A little pause. Another person has got into the omnibus; it is growing extremely full.
"I hate last days," says my companion, hitting viciously at the iron balcony rails with his stick, and scowling.
"'The Last Days of Pompeii,'" say I, stupidly, and yet laughing again; not because I think my witticism good, which no human being could do, but because I must laugh for very gladness. Another longer pause. (Shall I present the bag the night we arrive, or wait till next day?)
"I have got a riddle to ask you," says Frank, abruptly, and firing the observation off somewhat like a bomb-shell.
"Have you?" say I, absently. "I hope it is a good one."