“It’s probably what keeps him so youthful,” remarked Westmore. “The thing to do is to have something to do. That’s the elixir of youth. Look at 296 your mother, Garry. She’s had a busy handful bringing you up!”
Garret looked at his slender, attractive mother and laughed again:
“Is that what keeps you so young and pretty, mother?—looking after me?”
“Alas, Garry, I’m over forty, and I look it!”
“Do you?—you sweet little thing!” he interrupted, picking her up suddenly from the floor and marching proudly around the room with her. “Gaze upon my mother, Jim! Isn’t she cunning? Isn’t she the smartest little thing in America? Behave yourself, mother! Your grateful son is showing you off to the appreciative young gentleman from New York——”
“You’re ridiculous! Jim! Make him put me down!”
But her tall son swung her to his shoulder and placed her high on the mantel shelf over the huge fireplace; where she sat beside the clock, charming, resentful, but helpless, her spurred boots dangling down.
“Come on, Lee!” cried her brother, “I’m going to put you up beside her. That mantel needs ornamental bric-a-brac and objets d’art——”
Lee turned to escape, but her brother cornered and caught her, and swung her high, seating her beside his indignant mother.
“Just as though we were two Angora kittens,” remarked Lee, sidling along the stone shelf toward her mother. Then she glanced out through the open front door. “Lift us down, quick, Garry. You’d better! The horses are in the flower beds and there’ll be no more bouquets for the table in another minute!”