"If it be not impertinent, may we
inquire why you have absented yourself the whole morning?"
"Oh, shut up, Bet," returned her brother impatiently. "Sarcasm is
not your style at all. It is like killing a grasshopper with a pair
of iron-heeled clogs. It is precious heavy, I can tell you."
"You rude, unmannerly boy," and here Elizabeth attempted to pull his
hair, but she might as well have tried her prentice hand on a young
convict freshly shorn by the prison barber.
"Hands off, Betty, I tell you," returned the graceless lad. "I have
had rather a good time of it. I knew Herrick was getting pretty sick
of me." Here Cedric rolled over on his back, and tilted his straw
hat over his eyes. "Familiarity breeds contempt and all that sort of
thing. Conversation is like a salad, isn't it, Herrick?--you may
have plenty of green stuff and oil, but it wants pepper and a dash
of vinegar too."
"Why don't you box his ears, Miss Templeton? He is getting
positively abusive."
"I prefer pepper to oil," she returned calmly. "Well, Cedric,
perhaps you will kindly inform me if your mission has been
successful.
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