“There you are,” sighed he. “How do I know what you are talking about?”
“I was saying we always worked up our shorthand on Wednesday evenings.”
“If you say so,” said the melancholy one, “it must be so.”
“I was telling Cruden he might join us this winter.”
“Very well,” said the other, resignedly; “but where are you going to meet? Mrs Megson has gone away, and we’ve no reader.”
“Bother you, Booms, for always spotting difficulties in a thing. You see,” added he, to Horace, “we used to meet at a good lady’s house who kept a day school. She let us go there one evening a week, and read aloud to us, for us to take it down in shorthand. She’s gone now, bad luck to her, and the worst of it is we’re bound to get a lady to take us in, as we’ve got ladies in our class, you see.”
At the mention of ladies Booms groaned deeply.
“Why, I tell you what,” said Horace, struck by a brilliant idea. “What should you say to my mother? I think she would be delighted; and if you want a good reader aloud, she’s the very woman for you.”
Waterford clapped his friend enthusiastically on the back.
“You’re a trump, Cruden, to lend us your mother; isn’t he, Booms?”