“Just come from Nevada?”
“One hour and one-half ago, during the which time Billy Macclesfield's been here, greasy with some new virtues. I take it you had something to do with greasing him. Next came Ted, who said he's going to get married. Next came Aidee with a melodious melodrama of his own, and said he was going to quit town. Why, things are humming here! How you feeling, sonny?”
A huge, hairy, iron-grey, talkative man, with a voice like an amiable bison, was T. M. Secor.
He continued: “Hold on! Why, Aidee said you knew about that screed of his. I gathered you got it by a sort of fortuitous congregation of atoms? I gathered that there brother of Aidee's was, by the nature of him, a sort of fortuitous atom.”
“About that.”
“Just so! Well—you ain't got a melodious melodrama too?”
“No,” said Hennion. “I want to take up the conversation you had with Macclesfield.”
“Oh, you do!”
“I'm not feeling greasy with virtue myself, you know.”
“Oh, you ain't!”—Secor was silent for some moments.