"You're what?"
"Proud to meet you."
"What of it?" said Sigsbee Waddington churlishly.
"Mr. Waddington," said George, "I was born in Idaho."
Much has been written of the sedative effect of pouring oil on the raging waters of the ocean, and it is on record that the vision of the Holy Grail, sliding athwart a rainbow, was generally sufficient to still the most fiercely warring passions of young knights in the Middle Ages. But never since history began can there have been so sudden a change from red-eyed hostility to smiling benevolence as occurred now in Sigsbee H. Waddington. As George's words, like some magic spell, fell upon his ears, he forgot that one of those ears was smarting badly as the result of the impulsive clutch of this young man before him. Wrath melted from his soul like dew from a flower beneath the sun. He beamed on George. He pawed George's sleeve with a paternal hand.
"You really come from the West?" he cried.
"I do."
"From God's own country? From the great wonderful West with its wide open spaces where a red-blooded man can fill his lungs with the breath of freedom?"
It was not precisely the way George would have described East Gilead, which was a stuffy little hamlet with a poorish water-supply and one of the worst soda-fountains in Idaho, but he nodded amiably.
Mr. Waddington dashed a hand across his eyes.