GRINNIDGE: "I'm sorry. What have you been doing?"

RANSOM: "I've been making an ass of myself."

GRINNIDGE: "Wasn't that rather superfluous?"

RANSOM: "If you please, yes. But now, it you're capable of
listening to me without any further display of your cross-examination
wit, I should like to tell you how it happened."

GRINNIDGE: "I will do my best to veil my brilliancy. Go on."

RANSOM: "I went up to Ponkwasset early in September for the
foliage."

GRINNIDGE: "And staid till late in October. There must have been a
reason for that. What was her name? Foliage?"

RANSOM, coming up to the corner of the chimney-piece, near which his
friend sits, and talking to him directly over the register: "I think
you'll have to get along without the name for the present. I'll tell
you by and by." As Mr. Ransom pronounces these words, Miss Reed, on
her side of the partition, lifts her head with a startled air, and,
after a moment of vague circumspection, listens keenly. "But she was
beautiful. She was a blonde, and she had the loveliest eyes--eyes,
you know, that could be funny or tender, just as she chose--the kind
of eyes I always liked." Miss Reed leads forward over the register.
"She had one of those faces that always leave you in doubt whether
they're laughing at you, and so keep you in wholesome subjection; but