"Quel dommage!" sighed Celine, moving after them; "la seule chemise blanche de Monsieur le Baron. Eh bien! il faut lui en acheter une autre!"
At dinner that evening Mrs. Bines related her adventure, to the unfeigned delight of her graceless son, and to the somewhat troubled amazement of her daughter.
"And, do you know," she ventured, "maybe he isn't a regular baron, after all!"
"Oh, I guess he's a regular one all right," said Percival; "only perhaps he hasn't worked at it much lately."
"But his sitting there eating in that—that shirt—" said his sister.
"My dear young woman, even the nobility are prey to climatic rigours; they are obliged, like the wretched low-born such as ourselves, to wear—pardon me—undergarments. Again, I understand from Mrs. Cadwallader here that the article in question was satisfactory and fit—red, I believe you say, Mrs. Terwilliger?"
"Awful red!" replied his mother—"and they call their parlour a saloon."
"And of necessity, even the noble have their moments of deshabille."
"They needn't eat their lunch that way," declared his sister.
"Is deshabille French for underclothes?" asked Mrs. Bines, struck by the word.