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 cocoon. 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 passenger 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 Institute at Washington.”
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 Washin'ton, eh? I see. Yes, yes. Cal'latin' to stay here on the Cape long, Mr. Bangs?”
“Why, I don't know, I'm sure. I have not been—ah—well of late. The doctors advise rest and—ah—outdoor air and all that. I tried several places, but I didn't care for them. The Halls invited me to visit them and so I—well, I came.”
“Never been here to the Cape afore, then?”
“No.”
“Well, sir, you've come to the right place when you came to Wellmouth. I was born right here in East
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