'He's not on my level intellectually in any way. I doubt very much if he's capable of understanding me at all. Still, I suppose we might as well go and get it over. My people's dinners are a most awful bore to me.' 'How would you like it,' said Edith gently, 'if some day Archie were to call us my people, and talk about us as you do of yours?' 'Archie!' shouted Bruce. 'Good heavens! Archie!' Bruce held out his arm with a magnificent gesture. 'If Archie ever treats me with any want of proper deference, I shall cut him off with a shilling!' 'Do give me the shilling for him now,' said Edith laughing. The elder Mrs Ottley was a sweet woman, with a resigned smile and a sense of humour. She had a great admiration for Edith, who was very fond of her. No-one else was there on this occasion. Bruce always complained equally, regarding it as a slight if they were asked alone, and a bore if it was a dinner party. The elder Mr Ottley was considerably older than his wife, and was a handsome, clean-shaven elderly man with a hooked nose and a dry manner. The conversation at dinner consisted of vague attempts on Bruce's part to talk airy generalities, which were always brought back by his father to personalities more or less unflattering to Bruce. Edith and Mrs Ottley, fearing an explosion, which happened rather frequently when Bruce and his father were together, combined their united energy to ward it off. 'And what do you intend the boy to be when he grows up?' asked old Mr Ottley. 'Are you going to make him a useful member of society, or a Foreign Office clerk?' 'I intend my son,' said Bruce--'(a little port, please. Thanks.)--I intend my son to be a Man of the World.' His father gave a slight snort. 'Be very careful,' said Mrs Ottley to Edith, 'not to let the darling catch cold in his perambulator this weather. Spring is so treacherous!' 'Does he seem to show any particular bent for anything? I suppose hardly--yet?' 'Well, he's very fond of soldiers,' said Edith. 'Ah!' said Mr Ottley approvingly; 'what we want for empire-building is conscription. Every fellow ought to be a soldier some time in his life. It makes men of them '--he glanced round rather contemptuously--'it teaches them discipline.' 'I don't mean,' said Edith hastily, 'that he wants to _be_ a soldier. But he likes playing with them. He takes them to bed with him. It is as much as I can do to keep him from eating them.' 'The angel!' said Mrs Ottley. 'You must be careful about that, Edith,' said Bruce solemnly. 'I understand red paint is poisonous.' 'It won't hurt him,' said old Mr Ottley, purely from a spirit of contradiction. 'But he's just as fond of animals,' said Edith quickly, to avert a storm. 'That Noah's Ark you gave him is his greatest pleasure. He's always putting the animals in and taking them out again.' 'Oh, the clever darling!' cried Mrs Ottley. 'You'd hardly believe it, Edith, but Bruce was like that when he was a little boy too. He used to--'