I saw,
indeed, that diplomacy might work wonders with him.
At breakfast in the drawing-room, during which Cousin Egbert earned
warm praise from Mrs. Effie for his lack of appetite (he winking
violently at me during this), I learned that I should be expected to
accompany him to a certain art gallery which corresponds to our
British Museum. I was a bit surprised, indeed, to learn that he
largely spent his days there, and was accustomed to make notes of the
various objects of interest.
"I insisted," explained Mrs. Effie, "that he should absorb all the
culture he could on his trip abroad, so I got him a notebook in which
he puts down his impressions, and I must say he's done fine. Some of
his remarks are so good that when he gets home I may have him read a
paper before our Onwards and Upwards Club."
Cousin Egbert wriggled modestly at this and said: "Shucks!" which I
took to be a term of deprecation.
"You needn't pretend," said Mrs. Effie. "Just let Ruggles here look
over some of the notes you have made," and she handed me a notebook of
ruled paper in which there was a deal of writing. I glanced, as
bidden, at one or two of the paragraphs, and confess that I, too, was
amazed at the fluency and insight displayed along lines in which I
should have thought the man entirely uninformed.
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