"Why,
I'm not by some years as old as you are, Martha! You were several
classes ahead of me in school, don't you remember? I am exactly
thirty-nine years old, and as you know everything else, you ought to
know that!"
Miss Hopkins studied him with a balefully level eye.
"You really can't blame anybody for forgetting it, Richard," she
said, ambiguously.
"You are to recollect, Geddes, that a woman is always as young as
she looks," (Mr. Jelnik bowed, smilingly, to Miss Hopkins), "and a
man is older than he feels," he added, for the doctor's benefit.
"All right. Let's say I feel as good as Martha looks," the doctor's
momentary ill humor vanished. Miss Hopkins smiled. She had stuck her
claws into him and drawn blood; but her fur was still ruffled.
Mr. Jelnik made his adieus, Boris offering each of us a polite paw.
"And now," the doctor ordered briskly, "to your spinning, jades, to
your spinning! Into my car, the three of you! No, Martha, I will
_not_ take a refusal; you shall not walk: you've got to come along,
if I have to tuck you under my arm. I don't care if you never
reduce. What do you want to reduce for, anyhow? You're all right
just as you are! There! are you satisfied?"
We stood by passively while the masterful doctor heckled and hustled
the unhappy Center of Culture into his car.
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