“That’s what I said,” said Tenny. “Isn’t misogyny a chemical compound of metal and gas?”
Tenny had been to the School of Mines for two weeks, and had retired because he didn’t care for mathematics and the table at the college restaurant wasn’t good.
“I fancy you are thinking of heterophemy, which is an infusion of unorthodox gases into a solution of vocabulary particles,” suggested Billy Jones, grasping his sides madly to keep them from shaking.
“Oh yes,” said Tenny, “of course. I remember now.” Then he laughed somewhat, and added, “I always get misogyny and heterophemy mixed.”
“Who wouldn’t?” cried Harry Snobbe. “I do myself! There’s no chance to talk about either where I live,” he added. “Half the people don’t know what they mean. They’re not very anthropological up my way.”
“What’s a Samarcand?” asked Tenafly, again. “Haarley’s poem speaks of Cossack and of Samarcand. Of course we all know that a Cossack is a garment worn by the Russian peasants, but I never heard of a Samarcand.”
“It’s a thing to put about your neck,” said Dick Snobbe. “They wear ’em in winter out in Siberia. I looked it up some years ago.”
“Let’s take up ‘cerulean fire,’” said Bedford Parke, Tenafly appearing to be satisfied with Snobbe’s explanation.
“What’s ‘cerulean fire’?”
“Blue ruin,” said Huddy.