Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/70

Rh daily services, he expects to complete the round for a total of about thirty-five days. Bogie, he says, is thirty; and his great-uncle, who went about the course when they were making no repairs, made it in twenty-nine. Really, Miss Varris," he checked himself cautiously, "the English sense of humor isn't less than ours; it's merely different. Take the way they talk about themselves, for instance."

"What do you mean?" the girl asked.

"Well, I told you just a moment ago that Mr. Dunneston hasn't confided his name to me yet. He hasn't; but that's about the only thing he's withheld. He has told me fully and freely about himself and all his family and their affairs, how his father and mother fight, about his differences with his sisters, and all about his bad brother in the colonies, and what his cousins think of him, and about the family gout, and—"

"The what, Mr. Preston?" the girl broke in. "I don't want to interrupt again, truly. But the what, did you say? The family what?"

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