“What crowd?”

“Your aunt is literary, you know.  She’s filled the house with poets and that sort of thing.  It will be a treat having you around.  You’re human!  I don’t see that we’re going to make much of you now that you’re here, but I’m darned glad you’ve come, Jimmy!”

“Put it there, uncle Pete!” said Jimmy.  “You’re all right.  You’re the finest Captain of Industry I ever met!”

CHAPTER XIII

SLIGHT COMPLICATIONS

They left the subway at Ninety-sixth Street and walked up the Drive.  Jimmy, like every one else who saw it for the first time, experienced a slight shock at the sight of the Pett mansion, but, rallying, followed his uncle up the flagged path to the front door.

“Your aunt will be in the drawing-room, I guess,” said Mr. Pett, opening the door with his key.

Jimmy was looking round him appreciatively.  Mr. Pett’s house might be an eyesore from without, but inside it had had the benefit of the skill of the best interior decorator in New York.

“A man could be very happy in a house like this, if he didn’t have to poison his days with work,” said Jimmy.

Mr. Pett looked alarmed.

“Don’t go saying anything like that to your aunt!” he urged.  “She thinks you have come to settle down.”

“So I have.  I’m going to settle down like a limpet.  I hope I shall be living in luxury on you twenty years from now.  Is this the room?”

Mr. Pett opened the drawing-room door.  A small hairy object sprang from a basket and stood yapping in the middle of the room.  This was Aida, Mrs. Pett’s Pomeranian.  Mr. Pett, avoiding the animal coldly, for he disliked it, ushered Jimmy into the room.

“Here’s Jimmy Crocker, Nesta.”

Jimmy was aware of a handsome woman of middle age, so like his step-mother that for an instant his self-possession left him and he stammered.

“How—­how do you do?”

His demeanour made a favourable impression on Mrs. Pett.  She took it for the decent confusion of remorse.

“I was very surprised when your uncle telephoned me,” she said.  “I had not the slightest idea that you were coming over.  I am very glad to see you.”

“Thank you.”

“This is your cousin, Ogden.”

Jimmy perceived a fat boy lying on a settee.  He had not risen on Jimmy’s entrance, and he did not rise now.  He did not even lower the book he was reading.

“Hello,” he said.

Jimmy crossed over to the settee, and looked down on him.  He had got over his momentary embarrassment, and, as usual with him, the reaction led to a fatal breeziness.  He prodded Ogden in his well-covered ribs, producing a yelp of protest from that astounded youth.

“So this is Ogden!  Well, well, well!  You don’t grow up, Ogden, but you do grow out.  What are you—­a perfect sixty-six?”