It is you who owe me an account of yourself; nevertheless, I am prompted to write, if only to tell you that I have just got the complete set of the Byzantine Historians.

A catalogue tempted me, and I did buy.' And so on in the same strain, until, in speaking of nearer matters, his style grew simpler.
'Our elder boy begins to put me in a difficulty.

As I told you, he has been brought up on the most orthodox lines of Anglicanism; his mother--best of mothers and best of wives, but in this respect atavistic--has had a free hand, and I don't see how it could have been otherwise.

But now the lad begins to ask awkward questions, and to put me in a corner; the young rascal is a vigorous dialectician and rationalist--odd result of such training.

It becomes a serious question how I am to behave.