Horace coughed. Coughing was one of his two gestures. When he
talked you forgot he had a body at all. It was like hearing a
phonograph record by a singer who had been dead a long time.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want them letters," whined Marcia melodramatically--"them
letters of mine you bought from my grandsire in 1881."

Horace considered.

"I haven't got your letters," he said evenly. "I am only
seventeen years old. My father was not born until March 3, 1879.
You evidently have me confused with some one else."

"You're only seventeen?" repeated March suspiciously.

"Only seventeen."

"I knew a girl," said Marcia reminiscently, "who went on the
ten-twenty-thirty when she was sixteen. She was so stuck on
herself that she could never say 'sixteen' without putting the
'only' before it. We got to calling her 'Only Jessie.' And she's
just where she was when she started--only worse. 'Only' is a bad
habit, Omar--it sounds like an alibi."

"My name is not Omar."

"I know," agreed Marcia, nodding--"your name's Horace. I just
call you Omar because you remind me of a smoked cigarette."