"Well?"
"Ain't you hep yet?" George betrayed some little exasperation in
addition to his disappointment.
"Hep?" P. Sybarite iterated wonderingly.
"Hep's the word," George affirmed: "John W. Hep, of the well-known
family of that name--very closely related to the Jeremiah Wises. Yunno
who I mean, don't you?"
"Sorry," said P. Sybarite sadly: "I'm not even distinctly connected
with either family."
"You mean you don't make me?"
"God forestalled me there," protested P. Sybarite piously.
"Inscrutable!"
Impatiently brushing aside this incoherent observation, George slapped
the folded paper resoundingly in the palm of his hand.
"Then this here don't mean nothin' to you?"
"To me--nothing, as you say."
"You ain't dropped to the resemblance between Molly Lessing and Marian
Blessington?"
"Between Miss Lessing and _that_ portrait?" asked P. Sybarite
scornfully.
"Why, they're dead ringers for each other. Any one what can't see
that's blind."
"But I'm _not_ blind."
"Well, then you gotta admit they look alike as twins--"
"But I've known twins who didn't look alike," said P.S.
"Ah, nix on the stallin'!" George insisted, on the verge of losing his
temper. "Molly Lessing's the spit-'n'-image of Marian Blessington--and
you know it. What's more--look at their names? _Molly_ for _Mary_--you
make that? _Mary_ and _Marian's_ near enough alike, ain't they? And
what's _Lessing_ but _Blessington_ docked goin' and comin'?"
"Wait a second.
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