“You need not apologise, Teddy. After knocking about Europe and the East for the last two years I am not likely to quarrel with such a room as this. Now, you go off and dress while I am unpacking, and come in again as soon as you can, and talk to me.”
“Now, Teddy, sit down while I am dressing, and tell me about every one; give me the _consigne_, as it were.”
“The present occupants of the house,” Teddy Drake said, “are, first, my father, whom you have seen—a dacent man, though I say it myself—acting partner in the great house of Painter & Co., porcelain manufacturers; an Englishman, quiet and matter of fact; has not a keen appreciation of a joke. My mother is Irish to the backbone, and we all take after her. Indeed, we spend a good deal of our time over there with her relations, and the brogue comes natural to us. I always use it myself, especially when I am talking with ladies; one can venture upon a tinder sentiment in the brogue which one could never hazard in Saxon. The only son of the above-mentioned couple——”
“Spare me that, Teddy,” Frank laughed; “I know more of him than is to his advantage already.”
“Now I call that unkind, Frank; I was about to have said some neat things about Edward Drake, Esq. My elder sister Margaret is to be married in two days, so you won't see much of her, and I need not bother you with a description. She is quiet, and takes after her father. Sarah is one of the jolliest girls you will meet in a day's journey, and Katie's a darling.”
“I remember your speaking of your two elder sisters at Cambridge, Teddy, but I do not think I heard you mention the youngest.”
“Oh, Katie is not a sister at all, Frank. She is a cousin—a downright Irish girl. She has lost her father and mother, and has been living with us for the last two years. Now, Frank, make haste with your dressing, and draw it as mild as you conveniently can, for the girls' sake. It is not fair, Frank; upon my life, it is not. I told them that you were really a good fellow, and they are prepared to like you upon my recommendation; but I said that, as far as looks went, you were nothing to speak of—in fact, rather the contrary—and now they'll think I've been humbugging them entirely.”
“I am very much obliged to you for your recommendation, Teddy,” Frank said, laughing.