"H'm! Your pardon, gentlemen! Merely an expletive—h'm—a Greek word I indulge in sometimes when—when excited; a weakness, I might say. H'm!" He seized his lens again.
Billings' eyes yielded admiration.
"Great Scott, Dicky!" he whispered in my ear. "See what a thing education is! Think of being able to swear in Greek—in Greek, Dicky!" Billings' voice expressed awe. "Why, he's got an Erie Canal skipper backed clear off the board, and if he wanted to turn loose, I'll bet he could make a certain railway president I know look like a two-spot!"
At this point the professor struck his fist angrily upon the pajamas. The face that he turned was unnaturally flushed and his chin quivered excitedly.
"Ridiculous, I say! Poof!" He snapped his fingers. "Necromancy and thaumaturgy transmitted in pajamas! Absurd!"
"Piffle!" said Billings emphatically. "Don't know what they are," he whispered to me, "but I'll take a hundred-to-one shot on anything he says. The professor's a corker!"
"By Jove!" I remarked. "Perhaps Professor Huckleberry won't mind telling us—"
"What I think, gentlemen? What could I think but what I am sure is your own conclusion—though you have generously and considerately left me to form my own opinion—namely, that the claim of supernatural attributes of these garments is preposterous. Enchanted pajamas! Haunted pajamas! Poof! Nursery lore; children's fairy tales! Ghosts, gentlemen? Tut, tut—nonsense!"
He snorted indignantly.
"Ghosts!" faltered Billings.