“H’m!” he said a bit dubiously. “I had supposed that Richard was displaying the quality of constancy which is so rare in the modern young man. I⁠—I must think it over.”

So we left it at that, and I came away and told Bingo the position of affairs.

“Allowance OK,” I said. “Uncle blessing a trifle wobbly.”

“Doesn’t he seem to want the wedding bells to ring out?”

“I left him thinking it over. If I were a bookie, I should feel justified in offering a hundred to eight against.”

“You can’t have approached him properly. I might have known you would muck it up,” said young Bingo. Which, considering what I had been through for his sake, struck me as a good bit sharper than a serpent’s tooth.