“Well,” he says, “it does surprise me so. I can’t make it out, somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But⁠—” He stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman’s, and says, “Didn’t you think she’d like me to kiss her, sir?”

“Why, no; I⁠—I⁠—well, no, I b’lieve I didn’t.”

Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:

“Tom, didn’t you think Aunt Sally ’d open out her arms and say, ‘Sid Sawyer⁠—’ ”

“My land!” she says, breaking in and jumping for him, “you impudent young rascal, to fool a body so⁠—” and was going to hug him, but he fended her off, and says:

“No, not till you’ve asked me first.”