Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/96

82 Indeed he was sitting up in bed as cheerful and independent as if he had paid two-pence for a park chair.

"I fancy," he began, "that we ought to spend a peaceful day indoors. The trouble with these foreign parts is that they don't have enough home life. If it isn't one thing it's another."

"Sometimes it's both, sir," I said, and he saw at once that I was not to be wheedled. Thereupon he grinned brazenly at me, and demanded:

"What did she say?"

"Well, sir," I said, "she was highly indignant at me for taking you and Mr. Tuttle into public houses and forcing you to drink liquor, but she was good enough, after I had expressed my great regret and promised to do better in the future, to promise that I should have another chance. It was more than I could have hoped, sir, after the outrageous manner in which I behaved."

He grinned again at this, and in spite of my resentment I found myself grinning with him. I am aware that this was a most undignified submission to the injustice he had put upon me, and it was far from the line of stern rebuke that I had fully meant to adopt with him, but there seemed no other way. I mean to say, I couldn't help it.

"I'm glad to hear you talk that way," he said. "It shows you may have something in you after all. What you want to do is to learn to say no. Then you won't be so much trouble to those who have to look after you."

"Yes, sir," I said, "I shall try, sir."

"Then I'll give you another chance," he said sternly.

I mean to say, it was all spoofing, the way we talked. I am certain he knew it as well as I did. and I am sure we