“I was just going to ask if you had three brothers,” observed Richard.  “Do I understand ‘Rob’ is a girl?”

“Sure, Rob’s a girl all right, and I’m mighty glad of it.  I wouldn’t be a girl myself, not much; but I wouldn’t have Rob anything else—­I should say not.  Name’s Roberta, you know, after father.  She’s a peach of a sister, I tell you.  Ruth’s all right, too, of course, but she’s different.  She’s a girl all through.  But Rob’s half boy, or—­I should say there’s just enough boy about her to make her exactly right, if you know what I mean.”

He looked inquiringly at Richard, who nodded gravely.  “I think I get something of your idea,” he agreed.  “It makes a fine combination, does it?”

“I should say it did.  You know a girl that’s all girl is too much girl.  But one that likes some of the things boys like—­well, it helps out a lot.  Through with the grapefruit, Mary,” he added, over his shoulder, to the maid.  “Have you any brothers or sisters, Mr. Kendrick?” he inquired interestedly, when he had assured himself that the clam broth with which he was now served was unquestionably good to eat.

“Not one—­living.  I had a brother, but he died when I was a little chap.”

“That was too bad,” said Ted with ready sympathy.  He looked straight across the table at Richard out of sea-blue eyes shaded by very heavy black lashes, which, it struck Richard quite suddenly, were much like another pair which he had had one very limited opportunity of observing.  The boy also possessed a heavy thatch of coal-black hair, a lock of which was continually falling over his forehead and having to be thrust back.  “Because father says,” Ted went, on, “it’s a whole lot better for children to be brought up together, so they will learn to be polite to each other.  I’m the youngest, so I’m most like an only child.  But, you see,” he added hurriedly, “the older ones weren’t allowed to give up to me, and I had to be polite to them, so perhaps”—­he looked so in earnest about it that Richard could not possibly laugh at him—­“I won’t turn out as badly as some youngest ones do.”

There was really nothing priggish about this statement, however it may sound.  And the next minute the boy had turned to a subject less suggestive of parental counsels.  He launched into an account of his elder brother Louis’s prowess on the football fields of past years, where, it seemed, that young man had been a remarkable right tackle.  He gave rather a vivid account of a game he had witnessed last year, talking, as Richard recognized, less because he was eager to talk than from a sense of responsibility as to the entertainment of his guest.

“But he won’t play any more,” he added mournfully.  “He took his degree last year and he’s in father’s office now, learning everything from the beginning.  He’s just a common clerk, but he won’t be long,” he asserted confidently.

“No, not long,” agreed Richard.  “The son of the chief won’t be a common clerk long, of course.”