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.
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