Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/62

52 hard, and plans about working his way up, just as a man in any other profession would." Uncle Chandler sat thinking this over. He would have done considerably more thinking if he'd been in possession of the information that his niece had already allowed this same prize-fighter to pilot her and Ruby and the wine-colored roadster out to a sea-food dinner at a Sound roadhouse. But even as it was, Uncle Chandler seemed sufficiently upset.

"Say, Teddikins," he somewhat grimly remarked out of the silence that had fallen over the darkening studio, "what d'you suppose your mother would think about all this?"

"I'm not in the least interested in what mother thinks about it," was Teddie's altogether irresponsible and wilful rejoinder.

The old Major, who had already risen to go, turned this speech over, turned it over with great deliberation. Then he sat down again.

"It's not so much Lydia, my dear," he said. "It's what poor old Lydia embodies,