"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 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.