When will you repay it ?' 'As soon as we've got it, of course,' Dicky said.
Then the G.B.said to Oswald, 'You seem the eldest,' but I explained to him that it was Dicky's idea, so my being eldest didn't matter.

Then he said to Dicky--'You are a minor, I presume ?' Dicky said he wasn't yet, but he had thought of being a mining engineer some day, and going to Klondike.
'Minor, not miner,' said the G.B.'I mean you're not of age ?' 'I shall be in ten years, though,' said Dicky.

'Then you might repudiate the loan,' said the G.B., and Dicky said 'What ?' Of course he ought to have said 'I beg your pardon.

I didn't quite catch what you said'-- that is what Oswald would have said.

It is more polite than 'What.' 'Repudiate the loan,' the G.B repeated.