Nevertheless, she smiled graciously.
"From what I hear this is no new function of yours; that is, if there really IS a Mr.Rushbrook.I am inclined to think him a myth." "You make me wish he were," retorted Somers, gallantly; "but as I couldn't reign at all, except in his stead, I shall look to you to lend your rightful grace to my borrowed dignity." The more general announcement to the company was received with a few perfidious regrets from the more polite, but with only amused surprise by the majority.

Indeed, many considered it "characteristic"-- "so like Bob Rushbrook," and a few enthusiastic friends looked upon it as a crowning and intentional stroke of humor.

It remained, however, for the gentleman from Siskyou to give the incident a subtlety that struck Miss Nevil's fancy.

"It reminds me," he said in her hearing, "of ole Kernel Frisbee, of Robertson County, one of the purlitest men I ever struck.
When he knew a feller was very dry, he'd jest set the decanter afore him, and managed to be called outer the room on bus'ness.

Now, Bob Rushbrook's about as white a man as that.