Part 2 (1/2)
”Come pretty nigh losin' somethin' overboard that time, didn't you?” he observed.
Mr. Bangs pulled the brown derby as far down upon his head as it would go.
”I--I'm afraid I made a mistake in buying this hat,” he confided. ”I told the man I didn't think it fitted me as it should, but he said that was because I wasn't used to it. I doubt if I ever become used to it.
And it really doesn't fit any better to-day than it did yesterday.”
”New one, ain't it?” inquired Raish.
”Yes, quite new. My other blew out of the car window. I bought this one at a small shop near the station in Boston. I'm afraid it wasn't a very good shop, but I was in a great hurry.”
”Where was you comin' from when your other one blew away?”
”From the mountains.”
”White Mountains?”
”Yes.”
Raish said that he wanted to know and waited for his pa.s.senger to say something more. This the pa.s.senger did not do. Mr. Pulcifer whistled a bar or two of his ”Follies” song and then asked another question.
”You any relation to Josh?” he asked.
”I beg your pardon?”
”Eh? Oh, that's all right. I just asked you if you was a relation of Josh's--of Hall's, I mean, the folks you're goin' to see.”
”Oh, no, no. We are not related. Merely friends.”
”I see. I thought there wan't any Bangses in that family. His wife was a Cahoon, wan't she?”
”I--I BEG your pardon?”
”I asked you if she wan't a Cahoon; Cahoon was her name afore she married Hall, wan't it?”
”Oh, I don't know, I'm sure.... Now, really, that's very funny, very.”
”What's funny?”
”Why, you see, I--” Mr. Bangs had an odd little way of pausing in the middle of a sentence and then, so to speak, catching the train of his thought with a jerk and hurrying on again. ”I understood you to ask if she was a--a coc.o.o.n. I could scarcely believe my ears. It WAS funny, wasn't it?”
Raish Pulcifer thought it was and said so between roars. His conviction that his pa.s.senger was a queer bird was strengthening every minute.
”What's your line of business, Mr. Bangs?” was his next question.
”I am not a business man. I am connected with the Archaeological Department of the National Inst.i.tute at Was.h.i.+ngton.”
If he had said he was connected with the interior department of a Brontosaurus the statements would have conveyed an equal amount of understanding to the Pulcifer mind. However, it was a fixed principle with Raish never to admit a lack of knowledge of any subject whatsoever.
So he said:
”From Was.h.i.+n'ton, eh? I see. Yes, yes. Cal'latin' to stay here on the Cape long, Mr. Bangs?”