"'My dear,' he said, with gentle deprecation, 'I am so absent-minded—I always do it in the heat of argument.'
"The girl rose, and, bending over her untidy parent, deftly untied the knot in his flapping coat. When he was disentangled, she sat down and said, with a ghost of a smile, 'He is so very absent-minded.'
"'Your father is evidently a great student,' I ventured, pleasantly. How I pitied her, tied to this old lunatic!
"'Yes, he is a great student,' she said, quietly.
"'I am,' he murmured; 'that's what makes me so absent-minded. I often go to bed and forget to sleep.' Then, looking at me, he asked me my name, adding, with a bow, that his name was P. Royal Wyeth, Professor of Pythagorean Research and Abstruse Paradox.
"'My first name is Penny—named after Professor Penny, of Harvard,' he said; 'but I seldom use my first name in connection with my second, as the combination suggests a household remedy of penetrating odor.'
"'My name is Kensett,' I said, 'Harold Kensett, of New York.'
"'Student?'
"'Er—a little.'
"'Student of diamonds?'