When Kit reached the study door she knocked, but there was no answer. “Mother says he never hears if he’s writing,” she whispered. “Let’s go in--come on!” So she turned the handle of the door and went in. Grandfather was writing. His great knee-hole table was piled with open books, and he had on his gold-rimmed spectacles. He never looked up as Kit shut the door softly behind her. For one thing, doors never creaked in grandfather’s house.
The children stood inside the door and waited, but he never looked up. “Come on,” said Kit, as, holding Addison by the hand, they walked leisurely across the room, till she stood close by their grandfather; then she said in a loud and cheerful voice:
“Good-morning, Gaffer; we’ve come to see you!”
“We’ve come to see you!” echoed the ever-obedient Addison. Grandfather was fond of old-fashioned things, and the name “Gaffer” was so delightfully inappropriate that he encouraged the children to use it when they spoke to him.
“Oh, you’ve come, have you?” he said, taking off his spectacles and turning himself in his heavy revolving chair toward the children. “And how are you, my dears? Did you sleep well after your long journey?”
It did not take long to install a child on each knee. Addison gazed at him in adoring silence, but Kit hastened to unbosom herself of her wrongs. “I’ve come to complain!” she began with dignity. “They’ve only laid lunch for you in the dining-room. Now I know you’d like our company. Mother said we were to keep you company--will you give orders about it?”
Gaffer seemed duly impressed, as he said: “I will give orders at once. Of course you are to have lunch with me while you are here. It’s a pity it’s so wet for your first day, but it’s nice to think that those dear people are going further and further away from the fogs and damp. It will do mother so much good to be in a warm climate, and you must try not to feel dull without them.”
“I wish they’d taken me!” said Kit. “I love hotels!” Gaffer looked at her and laughed: “What a traveled little person you are! I never slept in a hotel till I was seventeen.”
“Ah, but that’s long ago. People go about more now, and, you see, we have to go with the regiment.”
“To go with the regiment,” echoed Addison.