I turn over this one and that, and I don't talk--indiscreetly.
There's--No! I don't think I can tell you that. And yet, why NOT?"
He got up and closed the door into the shop. "I've told no one," he
remarked, as he sat down again. "I owe you something."
His face flushed slightly, he leant forward over the little table
towards me.
"Listen!" he said.
I listened.
"Tono-Bungay," said my uncle very slowly and distinctly.
I thought he was asking me to hear some remote, strange noise. "I don't
hear anything," I said reluctantly to his expectant face. He smiled
undefeated. "Try again," he said, and repeated, "Tono-Bungay."
"Oh, THAT!" I said.
"Eh?" said he.
"But what is it?"
"Ah!" said my uncle, rejoicing and expanding. "What IS it? That's
what you got to ask? What won't it be?" He dug me violently in what he
supposed to be my ribs. "George," he cried--"George, watch this place!
There's more to follow."
And that was all I could get from him.
That, I believe, was the very first time that the words Tono-Bungay ever
heard on earth--unless my uncle indulged in monologues in his chamber--a
highly probable thing.
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