"Absolutely nothing whatever!"
"Yes, of course! But along of who? Who's the young woman you haven't been making love to? Tell up and have done with it."
"You are under a complete misconception, Stump. Really nobody!"
Mr. Hughes thought a moment, as though he were at work on a conundrum. Then he pointed suddenly. "Fanny Smith!" said he convictingly.
Mr. Aiken quite lost his temper, and got demonstrative. "Fanny Smith—Fanny grandmother!" he exclaimed meaninglessly! "How can you talk such infernal rot, Stumpy. Do be reasonable!"
"Then it was somebody," said his tormentor, and Mr. Aiken felt very awkward and humiliated.
However, he saw inevitable confession ahead, and braced himself to the task. "Really, Stump," said he, "it would make you cry with laughing to know who it was that was at the bottom of it. I said 'Fanny grandmother,' just now, but at any rate Fanny Smith's a tailor's wife with no legs to speak of, who sits on the counter, and a very nice girl if you know her. I mean there's no fundamental absurdity in Fanny Smith. This was." Which wasn't good speechwork, but, oh dear, how little use accuracy is!
"Who was it then?" Mr. Hughes left one eye shut, under an implied contract to reopen it as soon as the answer came to his question.
"Well!" said Mr. Aiken reluctantly. "If you must have it, it was Sairah!" He was really relieved when his friend looked honestly puzzled, repeating after him "Sairah! What!—the gurl!" in genuine astonishment. It was now evident that the Idea would have to stand over.
Mr. Hughes said farewell to it, almost audibly; then said "Stop a minute!" and lit a pipe; then settled down in a rocking chair to listen, saying, "Now, my boy!—off you go." He was a long and loose-limbed person who picked his knees up alternately with both hands, as though to hold his legs on. Whenever he did this, the slipper in that connexion came off, with the effect of bringing its owner's sock into what is called keeping with the rest of the Studio, one which many persons would have considered untidy.