“Oh, ah!” I said.
He stepped back a bit, still hanging on to the good right hand.
“You are very young to have accomplished so much!”
I couldn’t follow the train of thought.
The family, especially my Aunt Agatha, who has savaged me incessantly from childhood up, have always rather made a point of the fact that mine is a wasted life, and that, since I won the prize at my first school for the best collection of wild flowers made during the summer holidays, I haven’t done a dam’ thing to land me on the nation’s scroll of fame.
I was wondering if he couldn’t have got me mixed up with someone else, when the telephone-bell rang outside in the hall, and the maid came in to say that I was wanted. I buzzed down, and found it was young Bingo.
“Hallo!” said young Bingo. “So you’ve got there? Good man! I knew I could rely on you. I say, old crumpet, did my uncle seem pleased to see you?”
“Absolutely all over me. I can’t make it out.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I just rang up to explain. The fact is, old man, I know you won’t mind, but I told him that you were the author of those books I’ve been reading to him.”
“What!”
“Yes, I said that ‘Rosie M. Banks’ was your pen-name, and you didn’t want it generally known, because you were a modest,