"I'll tell you what it is, my boy," he accused, with lifted forefinger.
"You like to pose--that's what is the matter with you! You like to act
stolid, matter-of-fact, correct; you want to sit in your ambulance and
smoke cigarettes indifferently and raise your eyebrows superciliously
when shrapnel bursts round. And it's all very well now; it looks
picturesque; it looks good form, very. But how old are you, eh, Dev?
Twenty-eight is it? Twenty-nine?"

"You should know--none better--that I am thirty," I responded. "Haven't
you remembered each anniversary since I was five, beginning with a
hobby-horse and working up through knives and rifles and ponies to the
latest thing in cars?"

Dunny lowered his accusing finger and tapped it on the cloth.

"Thirty," he repeated fatefully. "All right, Dev. Strong and fit as an
ox, and a crack polo-player and a fair shot and boxer and not bad with
boats and cars and horses and pretty well off, too. So when you look
bored, it's picturesque; but wait! Wait ten years, till you take on
flesh, and the doctor puts you on diet, and you stop hunting chances to
kill yourself, but play golf like me. Then, my boy, when you look stolid
you won't be romantic. You'll be stodgy, my boy. That's what you'll be!"

Of all words in the dictionary there is surely none worse than this one.
The suggestions of stodginess are appalling, including, even at best,
hints of overweight, general uninterestingness, and a disposition to sit
at home in smoking-jacket and slippers after one's evening meal. As my
guardian suggested, my first youth was over. I held up both my hands in
token that I asked for grace.