“Puppy!” he bellowed. “Quit apin' the English! I get along with 'em myself--without any nonsense! Treat 'em white! Always treat me white! No foolishness! Puppy!” My wife and I soon discovered that Lady Agatha and Uncle Bainbridge were on the most friendly terms. He would sit for hours in the library, with his telephone receiver held patiently near the bookcase, shouting questions and smiling and nodding over the answers. Marian and I were afraid that Uncle Bainbridge, by his lack of polish, might offend Lady Agatha. And at first it was her custom to hover about anxiously while they were talking to each other. But Uncle Bainbridge discovered this, and resented it to such an extent that she had to be cautious indeed. His talks with Lady Agatha became longer and longer, and more and more frequent, until finally he received more of her attention than all the rest of us put together. Indeed, we need not have worried about Uncle Bainbridge's offending Lady Agatha: the friendship grew closer and closer. We were certain finally that it was taking on a strong tinge of sentimentality. One day my wife stopped me just outside the library door and said in a whisper, indicating the general direction of Lady Agatha's bookcase with a wave of her hand: “Henry, those two old things in there are calling each other Hiram and Agatha!” I listened, and it was so. A week later I heard Uncle Bainbridge seated by the bookcase, bellowing out a sentimental song. He was having a great deal of difficulty with it, and in order that he might hear himself he was singing with the black disk arrangement held directly in front of his own mouth. I cannot say that Uncle Bainbridge became etherealized by the state of his feelings toward Lady Agatha, whatever the exact state of his feeling may have been. But he did change a little, and the change was for the better. He cut out the bunches of gray hair from his ears, and he began to take care of his fingernails. Lady Agatha was having a good influence upon him. One day, as he and I were standing by the front gate, he suddenly connected himself for speech and roared at me, with a jerk of his thumb toward the house. “Fine woman!” “Who?” I shouted back. “Aggie.” “Why, yes. I suppose she--was.” “No nonsense!” he yelled. “Husband was a brute! Marry her myself! In a minute--if possible. Ain't possible! Shame! Bet she could make--good dumplings--apple dumplings! Huh!” Uncle Bainbridge is very fond of apple dumplings. His final test of a woman is her ability to make good apple dumplings. Several women might have married him had they been able to pass that examination. He can pay no higher compliment to a woman than to be willing to believe her able to make good dumplings. “Aggie, in there!” he roared again, impatient because I was slow in answering. “Dumplings! That kind of woman--could have made--good dumplings!”