Strong straightened his face into a
semblance of deep gravity. "Thish next one's important," he announced,
and put the end of the pencil in his mouth and meditated, while his
fascinated audience watched him. He was lost in thought for perhaps two
minutes, and then scribbled madly, and as he ended the little bunch of
men crowded frankly to look at what he had written. He pushed it toward
them with charming unreserve, and the bewilderment with which it was
read seemed to please him.
"Dear Papa": it ran. "I'm Calymene Blumembachii, a trilobite, one of the
crustaceans related to the emtomostracans, but looking more like a
tetradecapod, but always your affectionate--Billy."
He pushed it to the operator. "Split that in three," he ordered. "Don't
want ruin the wires I'm careful 'bout wires. Big fall snow wouldn't do
more damage 'n heavy words like that," he explained to the listening
circle. "Think I look like tetradecapod?" he asked of them as one who
makes conversation. "Had that in geology lesson when I was fifteen," he
went on. "Got lodged in crack in brain and there tish t' thish day!
Every now'n then I go 'flip,'"--he appeared to pull a light lever
situated in his head--"'n fire it off. See? Always hit something."
It was ten o'clock when, the job lot of telegrams despatched, Fairfax
led his volcano from the hotel and headed for the apartment house. He
expected another balk at the entrance, for his round of gaiety had come
now to seem to him eternal--he could hardly imagine a life in which he
was not conducting a tipsy man through a maze of experiences.
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