“Evidently you like the name.  You have applied it to me three times this morning.”

“Like it?  Why, I think it is the most charming name I ever heard.  It smells of primroses, garden-walls, soldiers in ragged regimentals, of the time when they built houses with big-columned porches.”

“My!”

“May I not call you Patty?”

“Oh, if you ask my permission, you may.”

“I do.”

“That is better.”

“Patty?”

“Well.”

“Do you ever look in your mirror?”

“The idea!  Of course I do.  I look in it every morning and every night.  And as often as I find the time.  Why?”

“Nothing; only, I do not blame you.”

“What’s all this leading to?” frowning.

“Heaven knows!  But I feel sentimental this morning.  There is so much beauty surrounding me that I feel impelled to voice my appreciation of it.”

“There is no remedy, I suppose.”

“None, save the agony of extemporization.”

“I have never heard you talk like this before.  What is the matter?”

“Perhaps it is the exhilaration I feel for the coming fight.  Would you like to see me mayor?”

“Indeed I should.  Think of the circus tickets you’d have to give away each year!  You know they always give the mayor a handful for his personal use.  No, Mr. Warrington, I shall be very proud of you when you are mayor.”

“What’s the matter with your calling me Richard or Dick?”

“We must not advance too suddenly.”

“Is there anything the matter with the name?”

“Oh, no; Richard is quite musical in its way.  But I am always thinking of the humpbacked king.  If I called you anything it would be Dick.”

“Richard was not humpbacked.  Moreover, he was a valiant king, greatly maligned by Mr. Shakespeare.”

“I see that I shall not dare argue with you on the subject; but we can not banish on so short a notice the early impressions of childhood.  Richard Third has always been a bugaboo to my mind.  Some day, perhaps, I’ll get over it.”

“Make it Dick, as a compromise.”

“Some day, when I have known you a little longer.  Has John ever told you about Mr. McQuade?”

“McQuade?” Warrington realized that he had been floating on a pleasant sea.  He came upon the hidden shore rather soundly.  “McQuade?” he repeated.

“Yes.  He had the audacity to propose to mother shortly after father’s death.  Think of it!  John wrote to him very definitely that his presence in the house would no longer be welcomed or tolerated.  Father had some slight business transactions with Mr. McQuade, and he came up to the house frequently.  He continued these visits after father’s death.  We treated him decently, but we simply could not make him feel welcome.  The third time he called he proposed.

“Mother left the room without even replying.  He understood.  A few minutes afterward we heard the door slam.  John wrote him the next morning.  Did you ever hear of anything to equal the cold-bloodedness of it?”