“You are friends of my—countryman, Emile Garin, are you not?” he pursued in his phraseology of extreme precision, with only the faint echo of an accent.
“Who?” I said. “Oh, Plooie, you mean. Friends? Well, acquaintances would be more accurate.”
“He tells me that you, Monsieur, befriended him when he had great need of friends. And you, Madame, always. So I have come to thank you.”
“You are interested in Plooie?” I asked.
“Plooie?” he repeated doubtfully. I explained to him and he laughed gently. “Profoundly interested,” he said. “I have here one of his finest umbrellas which his good wife presented to me. There was also a lady of whom he speaks, a grande dame, of very great authority.” For all the sadness of the deep voice, I felt that his eyes were twinkling.
“Madame Tallafferr,” supplied the Bonnie Lassie. “She is away on a visit.”
“I should like to have met that queller of mobs. She ought to be knighted.”
“Knighthood would add nothing to her status,” said I, dryly. “She is a Pinckney and a Pemberton besides being a Tallafferr, with two fs, two ls, and two rs.”
“Doubtless. I do not comprehend the details of your American orders of merit,” said the big sad-voiced man courteously. “But I should have been proud to meet her.”
“May I tell her that?” asked the Bonnie Lassie eagerly.