steamengine."

"Why a steamengine?"

"Well, because it is so powerful, and reliable, and unreasoning. Well,
I didn't mean that last, you know, but--but--you know what I mean. What
is the matter with you?"

"Why?"

"Because you have something on your mind. You have not laughed once."

He broke into a gruesome laugh. "I am quite jolly," said he.

"Oh, no, you are not. And why did you write me such a dreadfully stiff
letter?"

"There now," he cried, "I was sure it was stiff. I said it was absurdly
stiff."

"Then why write it?"

"It wasn't my own composition."

"Whose then? Your aunt's?"

"Oh, no. It was a person of the name of Slattery."

"Goodness! Who is he?"