"You mean a bird?" he innocently asked.
"A bird, sir?" the black dress gave a startled rustle.
"Excuse me; I thought you said ptarmigan."
The conventional old Colonel committed a very deplorable breach of etiquette—he snickered; but twisted it into a lusty cough, gutturally explaining:
"Mr. McElroy," she turned severely to Jane, "has been blaspheming—blaspheming the traditions of our noble heroes! My dear, it is positively disgusting!"
"The subject is quite a closed book to him," Jane sweetly replied, and the Colonel was threatened with another coughing spell.
"I didn't say anything against heroes," the engineer explained, "except that none of them can measure up to our heroines."
But from the toss of Miss Liz's head this had not brought him a grain of grace.
"What hero did I malign?"