“Ah, one of those you train with, eh? Do you like him?”
It was biting sarcasm, but to the colonel's disappointment it did not appear to affect his caller in the least. Converse even smiled—a most peculiar sort of smile.
“I must say, sir, that I have been hating him cordially.”
The colonel grunted approbation.
“But from now on, sir, for reasons best known to myself, I'm going to make that young man my close and particular friend. You'll hear from us later.”
He bowed stiffly and went out, leaving Colonel Dodd staring after him with his square face twisted into an expression of utter astonishment, his little eyes goggling, his tuft of whisker sticking up like an exclamation-point.
“The first appropriation the next legislature makes,” he soliloquized, “will have to be money enough to build a new wing on the insane-hospital. They're all going crazy in this state, from aristocrats to tramps.”