"I quite admired you; and, after all, you know--some other time." "No," he said, smiling still, "not some other time.

I don't think I will see them--thanks all the same.

They might put me out of conceit with what I have picked up for my little girl, which are the best I can afford." He seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, for he began to talk of England, and of London, about which he appeared to have that kind of vague half-and-half knowledge which so often proves misleading to young men newly launched into town life.

When he found out, as he soon did, that I was, to a certain extent, familiar with the metropolis, he began to question me minutely, and ended by making me promise to dine with him at the Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived in London.
He wanted me to go with him the very evening we arrived, but on that point I was firm.

My sister Jane, who was living with a hen canary (called Bob, after me, before its sex was known) in a small house in Kensington, would naturally be hurt if I did not spend my first evening in England with her, after an absence of so many years.
Carr was much interested to hear that I had a sister, and asked innumerable questions about her.