"Do you know Billy?"
"To be sure! And you do, too, she says."
"Oh, no, we don't," disputed Bertram, emphatically. "But we WISH we
did!"
His guest laughed.
"Well, I fancy you DO know her, or you wouldn't have answered like
that," he retorted. "For you just begin to know Miss Billy when you find
out that you DON'T know her. She is a charming girl--a very charming
girl."
"She is my namesake," announced William, in what Bertram called his
"finest ever" voice that he used only for the choicest bits in his
collections.
"Yes, she told me," smiled Calderwell. "'Billy' for 'William.' Odd
idea, too, but clever. It helps to distinguish her even more--though she
doesn't need it, for that matter."
"'Doesn't need it,'" echoed William in a puzzled voice.
"No. Perhaps you don't know, Mr. Henshaw, but Miss Billy is a very
popular young woman. You have reason to be proud of your namesake."
"I have always been that," declared William, with just a touch of
hauteur.
"Tell us about her," begged Bertram. "You remember I said that we wished
we did know her."
Calderwell smiled.
"I don't believe, after all, that you do know much about her," he began
musingly. "Billy is not one who talks much of herself, I fancy, in her
letters."
William frowned. This time there was more than a touch of hauteur in his
voice.
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