This was just family repartee; and “costly,” imported by Hal as the latest Winborough fashion, successor to “posh” and “nimble,” could be applied almost anywhere in conversation. Stanley Watson tried to squash it by a quality of bluff humorous pedantry, which he used rather successfully--he thought--to conceal his very real pain at the way the English language was perverted and constricted by the young Maxwells; and his equally real suspicion that Hal’s attitude towards himself was more amused than respectful. And indeed, there was something about Stanley’s personality which was a perpetual twitch to Hal’s funny-bone. Stanley liked being humorous, but resented being funny; he made infamous puns which he knew would provoke groans from the entire family; but only Hal perceived that Stanley felt the groans were additionally to his credit--it was manly to be groaned at. When his eldest daughter was brought in to say good-bye to her parents and grand-parents before going ta-ta on a Sunday morning, Stanley said things like: “Hello! When is a bonnet not a bonnet? When it’s Honor Rose (on a rose),” in a deep thick voice that obviously found the passage down his nose almost impregnable. And then a ruminative twinkle might be seen in Hal’s eyes, whenever he was present; a twinkle that said: “Watson _is_ such a costly ass!” But if Stanley humorous was funny, Stanley’s serious side was funnier still--to Hal. Grace thought, as was right and fitting she should, that Stanley had a fine character; for instance, he went regularly every Wednesday evening to play dominoes with a bedridden Boer-War veteran--“whose only pleasure it was.” “Whose only pleasure it was” must have been Gracie’s phrase, because Stanley never mentioned his little errand of quiet charity; slipped off very unobtrusively on Wednesdays; and when afterwards greeted by a forgetful: “Where have you been?” said: “Oh, just out ...” and quickly turned the subject, conveying the reproof: “If one can’t do a thing like that for a fellow human being without bragging about it----” “But he never misses a Wednesday--” Grace again--“however tired he is.” It was Hal’s ignoble ambition to see him miss a Wednesday. “Because if only he missed just one, the poor old chap, What’s-his-name, could at least _hope_ he’d miss another....”