“Stop that,” Esme said, clearly unshaken. “He saw an American do it in a fish-and-chips queue, and now he does it whenever he’s bored. Just stop it, now, or I shall send you directly to Miss Megley.”
Charles opened his enormous eyes, as sign that he’d heard his sister’s threat, but otherwise didn’t look especially alerted. He closed his eyes again, and continued to rest the side of his face on the chair seat.
I mentioned that maybe he ought to save it—meaning the Bronx cheer—till he started using his title regularly. That is, if he had a title, too.
Esme gave me a long, faintly clinical look. “You have a dry sense of humor, haven’t you?” she said—wistfully. “Father said I have no sense of humor at all. He said I was unequipped to meet life because I have no sense of humor.”
Watching her, I lit a cigarette and said I didn’t think a sense of humor was of any use in a real pinch.
“Father said it was.”
This was a statement of faith, not a contradiction, and I quickly switched horses. I nodded and said her father had probably taken the long view, while I was taking the short (whatever that meant).
“Charles misses him exceedingly,” Esme said, after a moment. “He was an exceedingly lovable man. He was extremely handsome, too. Not that one’s appearance matters greatly, but he was. He had terribly penetrating eyes, for a man who was intransically kind.”
I nodded. I said I imagined her father had had quite an extraordinary vocabulary.
“Oh, yes; quite,” said Esme. “He was an archivist—amateur, of course.”