“Are they?” Ansell said, a little bewildered himself.
“I think so.” She met Bogle’s unwavering stare coolly. “Have you a tendency to hernia?” she asked him abruptly.
Bogle screwed up his face. “What’s she talking about?” he asked feebly.
“Maybe I’m being too personal,” she said. “Let me put it this way. During an arboreal existence in the Miocene epoch of the Tertiary era, man, or I should say, pre-historic man lost his tail. He acquired an upright gait and a tendency to hernia. I just wanted to see how far you’d got. Think nothing of it. It’s only idle curiosity.”
Bogle’s face went a dull red and his eyes flashed viciously. “So you’re a smart dame, eh?” he snarled. “We had a flock of ’em in Chicago. But, get ’em in a corner and they yell murder.”
“I’m fussy who I take in corners,” the girl replied briskly. Then she smiled at him. “Don’t get mad. I was just fooling. What’s your name?”
Bogle looked at her suspiciously, but her frank smile disarmed him. “Sam Bogle,” he said.
“And listen, sister…”
“That’s a lovely name,” she broke in. “Was your mother Mrs. Bogle?”
Bogle blinked. “Yeah,” he said. “What of it? Who else do you think she’d be?”