“He didn’t ask me to help him out till things were in an awful mess at home, and then he showed me some of Patricia’s letters.”
“If I were cross-examining you,” I pointed out, “I should say that your statement is not quite clear. Tell the Jury what you mean, and don’t blow the apple pits at the portrait of your uncle the bishop.”
“I bet you I get him in the calves twice in three shots,” he said.
“An ignoble ambition,” I told him; “answer my question.”
“Well, you see, Patricia had found out all about her mother’s being fond of the man. His name begins with K, but I forget the rest of it.”
I ventured to say that the least he could do for a man whose life he had so strangely altered was to remember his name.
“W. W. will know it,” he said with the carelessness of genius.
“Even now,” I pressed him, “I don’t see where you come in. Did Patricia object to Mr. K.?”
“Oh, no, she thinks no end of him. So does W. W.” He added handsomely, “I wouldn’t have let her get married if they had shied at it.”
“In that case——”