I can feed
him anything at all hours and he is always ready for more. It may be
wrong to keep it from his sister when I know how she feels about it,
but I can't help that. I have to fill him up. His legs look too empty
for me.
But, to do Lovelace Peyton justice, he has got his own kind of pride,
and I understand it better than I do Roxanne's.
"For these nice eatings, I'll cut a cat open for nothing and let you
see inside what makes him go, if you get the cat," he offered, after
he had eaten two slices of buttered bread and the breast of half a
chicken out behind one of the lilac bushes in his ancestral garden
that is now mine.
Now, I call that a fair proposition, considering the circumstances,
and I wish I could make Roxanne be as sensible in spirit. But I can't.
Family pride is a terrible thing, like lunacy or hysterics when a
person gets it bad.
However, I decided to talk to Roxanne about her financial situation,
and I began as far off from the subject as I could, so as to approach
it with caution.
I made a start with a compliment. A sincere compliment is a good way
to start being disagreeable to a person for her own benefit.
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