“Charley,” asked Mr. Whacker, suddenly, that night, as we sat before the library fire, after the newly-arrived guests had retired, “do you know, I can’t understand why, in speaking of the ladies you met in Richmond, you never so much as mentioned the name of Alice Carter?”
I tried to catch Charley’s eye, but he durst not look me in the face. Seated as I was, therefore, rather behind my innocent relative, I clapped my hand upon my mouth, doubled myself up in my chair, and went through the most violent, though silent contortions of pantomimic laughter. Charley held his eye firmly fixed on my grandfather’s face, and affected, though with reddening face, not to observe my by-play.
“D-D-D-Didn’t I?”
Any kind of mental perturbation always brought on an attack of stammering with Charley.
“Why, no; and yet I have never seen a more charming girl. She is positively fascinating. Don’t you admit it, you cold-hearted young wretch?”
Here, a broad smile from the Don encouraging me to further exertions, my chair tilted, and I recovered myself with a bang.
“What is the matter with you?” asked my grandfather, suddenly turning.
Charley gave me a quick, imploring glance, and I had pity on him. “Give it to him, grandfather; he deserves it, every word,—the woman-hater!”
“To be sure he does. Why, were I at his time of life—hey, Mr. Smith?”
That night, after we had gone to bed, I was just dozing off into dreamland. Charley gave me a sudden dig in the ribs.