Junior seemed bored, but soon submitted. Like vocalists, he was afraid that they might stop urging him.
“Oh, very well,” he said. He skimmed lightly over the opening personal paragraph with the parenthetical voice people use when leading up to the important part of a letter, though this was a very important part for Junior, to get it over. Then, with the manner of saying, “Ah, here we are,” he began reading in a louder and more deliberate tone, but not without realistic hesitation here and there, as if unfamiliar with the text. He read not only the amusing adventure with the python, but an authoritative paragraph on the mineral deposits of the mountains. So his audience never doubted that he had a real letter from a real mining expert who signed himself “Your affectionate friend and father.”
Junior carelessly tossed the letter upon the table. “Some day I’ll read you one of his interesting ones,” he said.
“Do it now,” said one of his admirers. “It’s great stuff.”
“No, I never keep letters,” said Junior and, to prove it, tore up the carefully prepared document and tossed it in the fire.
“I’ll let you know when I get a good one.”
This was so successful that he did it again. There were plenty of other quotable pages in the same magazine article, and Junior had a whole box of his father’s stationery. But at the beginning and end of each letter Junior always insinuated a few paternal touches, suggesting a rich past of intimacy and affection, though just to make it a little more convincing he would occasionally insert something like this, “But I must tell you frankly, as man to man, that you spent entirely too much money last term,” and interrupted his reading to say, “Gee! I didn’t mean to read you fellows that part.” And they all laughed. A touch of parental nature that made all the boys akin.
The fame of these letters spread from the boys’ end of the dinner table to the master’s. Mr. Fielding said to Junior one day, “I’m so glad your father has been writing to you lately.”
“Lately? Why, he always writes to me. But don’t tell my Aunt Mary. Might make her jealous.”
Junior smiled as if he had a great joke on his Aunt Mary. There, he got that over too! Neither of these ladies would dare criticize his father again.