"But you haven't told me."
She left off playing, and slowly turned on the stool to face him. "A tune they played in Quincy one night, when they tarred and feathered a man," she said. And then, with a smile of sweet innocence, she added: "You were never in Quincy, were you?"
"Well, I was never tarred and feathered there."
"Possibly an acknowledgment that you were never in the town. Oh, somebody told me that you were once connected with opera."
"Then somebody flattered me. I couldn't sing in a chorus of scissors grinders."
"A sort of Chinese opera, I inferred," she said.
"Well, that's about the only sort I could sing in. Chinese opera, eh?"
"Yes, that's what I inferred. It was something about Sing-Sing. Isn't that Chinese?"
"Oh, it sounds like a joke," said he.
"And it wasn't?" she asked, in surprise. "Then it was serious opera instead of comic. They call serious opera grand, I believe. And is that the reason they call larceny grand—because it is serious?"