"Well, well—I shouldn't wonder if it was! You always were a clever child, James!..."
"What are some more of the things I've got to ask?" inquired the clever child after a brief silence.
"What? Oh—yes! Why don't you ask me to cut out the lick?" (He meant, abstain from alcoholic beverages.)
"Well, do you want me to?"
"Well, yes, I think I do, rather!"
"Well, will you?"
"Well—yes!"
Both laughed, and then Harry went on: "It strikes me that we are both talking a prodigious lot of nonsense, James. We've been making a regular scene, in fact—"
"I rather like scenes, myself," interrupted James, just for the pleasure of their being how he had expressed exactly the opposite opinion to some one else a few hours before.
"And no doubt we shall be heartily ashamed when we look back on it all in the cold gray light of to-morrow morning. One always is."