Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/146

"Georgie" Wake up, Taffy, old man. We've got to go. They don't want us here."

"Oh," said Drusilla uncomfortably, "I can't bear you to think me horrid, Georgie! I really should be glad to do anything—anything in reason for you. But you know you really do do extraordinary things, don't you?"

"This," said Georgie sternly, "is the sort of thing which shows up a man's friends in their true light."

Drusilla grew red.

"Oh, my dear boy!" she said in a pained voice. "How can we? You know we never thought of adopting any one. Why should we? It doesn't seem necessary, you see. And—why do you call him Taffy? I wish you wouldn't."

"Taffy was a Welshman," he said slowly, picking up the "Conqueror" cap to hold the elastic so clumsily that it flicked back into the ruddy, dazed little face and made the child cry out. Drusilla snatched it from his hands and slipped to her knees on the lawn in a moment. 130