Avoiding cast in Fluent Style code

Unity Engine
1

I’m playing around with implementing a fluent interface for some of my code.

However when I extend a class that uses this method I have to add in an ugly cast.
Allow me to demonstrate.

public class Base
{
    public Base Add()
    {
        return this;
    }
}

public class Child : Base{}

Now what I want to type is this

Child myChild = new Child()
    .Add()
    .Add()
    .Add();

But what I have to type is this

Child myChild = (Child) new Child()
    .Add()
    .Add()
    .Add();

Is there a way around this?

2

You know, it’s probably not that important. I can just do this:

Child myChild = new Child();
myChild
    .Add()
    .Add()
    .Add();

Good enough I guess, though not as elegant.