“Grissy! I say, Grissy!”
Miss Osborne and Professor Griswold, on their drooping Mingo County nondescripts, made a tame picture before Ardmore and his fair companion on their Ardsley hunters. The daughter of the governor of South Carolina looked upon the daughter of the governor of North Carolina with high disdain, and it need hardly be said that this feeling, as expressed by glacial glances, was evenly reciprocal, and that in the contemptuous upward tilt of two charming chins the nicest judgment would have been necessary to any fair opinion as to which state had the better argument.
The associate professor of admiralty was known as a ready debater, and he quickly returned his former friend’s salutation, and in much the contumelious tone he would have used in withering an adversary before a jury.
“Pardon me, but are you one of the employees here?”
“Why, Grissy, old man, don’t look at me like that! How did you——”
“I owe your master an apology for riding upon his property at a time when pestilence is giving you cause for so much concern. The death-rate from scarlet fever is deplorably high——”
“Oh, Grissy!” cried Ardmore.
“You have addressed me familiarly, by a nickname sometimes used by intimate friends, though I can’t for the life of me recall you. I want you to know that I am here in an official capacity, on an errand for the state of South Carolina.”
Miss Dangerfield’s chin, which had dropped a trifle, pointed again into the blue ether.
“You will pardon me,” she said, “but an agent of the state of South Carolina is far exceeding his powers when he intrudes upon North Carolina soil.”