TWO ON A TOUR
She vouchsafed the information that Dorothea was a romantic fool.
I denied it.
She dealt what she considered to be a body-blow by affirming that your property would not be in your hands till you were twenty-one.
I replied that I did n’t care if it did n’t reach you till you were a hundred and twenty-one.
She said, “Don’t be silly,” and asked me if I had ever thought of changing my name back to Forrest from Hogg.
I inquired in return if she would mind the loss of six thousand dollars a year, supposing that I should take such a step.
She reflected and said that she should, but she would rather lose it than take the name; and that we could rub along on Dorothea’s money, she supposed, if that was my idea of a pleasant life.
I hastened to say that I would relinquish the six thousand without a pang, confident that I could make a living anyway; but that it would be disloyal to my good old uncle, whose bounty had given me a college course, two years at Oxford and three at Harvard Law School. It had also permitted me to give my services to the United States Shipping Board without compensation.
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