Mr. Kilbright put his hand upon his heart and bowed. "What you have
heard is true," he said. "On my honor, I swear it."

"Then, grandfather," said old Mr. Scott, "here is my hand. It doesn't do
to doubt things in these days. I didn't believe in the telephone when
they first told me of it, but when I had a talk with Squire Braddon
through a wire, and heard his new boots creak as he came up to see who
it was wanted him, and he in his own house a good two miles away, I gave
in. 'Fetch on your wonders,' says I, 'I am ready.' And I don't suppose I
ought to be any more dumfounded at seeing my grandfather than at any of
the other wonders. I'm getting too old now to try to find out the whys
and the wherefores of the new things that turn up every day. I must just
take them as they come. And so if you, grandfather Kilbright, and our
good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Colesworthy, will come into the back room
we'll have a cup of tea, and a talk over old times. To be sure, there
will be some gaps which none of us will be able to get over, but we must
do the best we can."

After this Mr. Kilbright and his grandson saw a good deal of each other,
and the old gentleman always treated his mother's father with the
respectful deference which was due to such a relative.

"There are times," he once said to me, "when this grandfather business
looks to me about as big and tough as anything that any human being was
ever called on to swallow. But then I consider that you and Mrs.
Colesworthy have looked into these matters, and I haven't, and that
knowin' nothin' I ought to say nothin'; and if it ever happens to look
particularly tough, I just call to mind the telephone and Squire
Braddon's creaking boots, and that settles it."