"Well, I first knew Molly when her mother was alive."
"Her mother is alive. I've seen her. A woman who looks like Catherine of Russia."
"That's her stepmother. Sigsbee H. married again a couple of years ago."
"Tell me about Sigsbee H."
Hamilton Beamish twirled a dumb-bell thoughtfully.
"Sigsbee H. Waddington," he said, "is one of those men who must, I think, during the formative years of their boyhood have been kicked on the head by a mule. It has been well said of Sigsbee H. Waddington that, if men were dominoes, he would be the double-blank. One of the numerous things about him that rule him out of serious consideration by intelligent persons is the fact that he is a synthetic Westerner."
"A synthetic Westerner?"
"It is a little known, but growing, sub-species akin to the synthetic Southerner,—with which curious type you are doubtless familiar."
"I don't think I am."
"Nonsense. Have you never been in a restaurant where the orchestra played Dixie?"