"It's only the hogwash them Greasers and Pike County galoots ladle out to each other around the stove in a county grocery.

But," recalling himself loftily, and with a tolerant wave of his be-diamonded hand, "wot kin you expect from one of them cow counties?
They ain't satisfied till they drive every gentleman out of the darned gopher-holes they call their 'kentry.'" In her admiration of what she believed to be a loyal outburst for his friend, Phoebe overlooked the implied sneer at her provincial home.

But her father went on with a perfunctory, exasperating, dusty aridity:-- "That mebbee ez mebbee, Mr.Hooker, but the story down in our precinct goes that she gave Mrs.Peyton the slip,--chucked up her situation as adopted darter, and went off with a queer sort of a cirkiss woman,--one of her own KIN, and I reckon one of her own KIND." To this Mr.Hooker offered no further reply than a withering rebuke of the waiter, a genteel abstraction, and a lofty change of subject.

He pressed upon them two tickets for the performance, of which he seemed to have a number neatly clasped in an india-rubber band, and advised them to come early.

They would see him after the performance and sup together.