Before, he had been mostly the man that handled the carving-knife when I dined at home, and that wrote checks and dictated letters to Crawford in the privacy of his own den--he called it his study.
Now I found that he could tell a story that had some point to it, and could laugh at yours, in his dry way, whether it had any point or not.
I even got to telling him some of the scrapes I had got into, and about Perry Potter; dad liked to hear about Perry Potter.

The beauty of it was, he could understand everything; he had lived there himself long enough to get the range view-point.

I hate telling a yarn and then going back over it explaining all the fine points.
I remember one night when the fog was rolling in from the ocean till you could hardly see the street-lamps across the way, we sat by the fire--dad was always great for big, wood fires--and smoked; and somehow I got strung out and told him about that Kenmore dance, and how the boys rigged up in my clothes and went.

Dad laughed harder than I'd ever heard him before; you see, he knew the range, and the picture rose up before him all complete.

I told that same yarn afterward to Barney MacTague, and there was nothing to it, so far as he was concerned.