"By George, that's a
country for you! And Ecuador, I've always thought that must be an
interesting place. Have you ever been there?"
Yes, Mr. Porter had been to Ecuador. And there was a certain rail-
road in India he had helped put through. India! Now that WAS a
place! Had Dad ever been to India?
No, Dad had never been to India, but . . . "Good Lord, boy, how old
are you, anyway?"
"Thirty-two."
"Well, I never would have guessed it. Would you, Elizabeth?"
This, too, was rather embarrassing, but I managed to say I thought
Mr. Porter didn't look a day over twenty-eight.
"It's the life he leads," Dad declared with an air of
proprietorship--"out of doors all day long. It must be great!"
"It IS interesting. But I think I like it best for what it has done
for one; you see, I was supposed to have lungs once, long ago. Now
I'm as sound as a dollar."
"He looks it, doesn't he, Elizabeth!"
If Dad hadn't been such a dear, I should have been annoyed by his
constant requests for my opinion where it was so obviously
unnecessary. But Dad is such a dear. To make it worse, Mr. Porter
seemed to consider that whether he was, or was not, as sound as a
dollar, depended entirely on my answer.
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