BABY VAN RENSSELAER: Oh, Mr. Jones, I’m _so sorry_.
BABY VAN RENSSELAER: I didn’t quite understand you--but I do now. Why, you’re taking off your hat. What is it? Oh, the battle-flags!
BABY VAN RENSSELAER [_to herself_]: I wonder if that is the regiment I saw coming back from Washington?
The train rattled hotly along on its sultry journey from one end of Long Island to the other, a journey the half of which it had nearly accomplished with much fuss and fret. Leaving his impediments of travel in the smoker, Dear Jones entered the forward end of the parlor car in search of an uncontaminated glass of water. As he set down the glass he glanced along the car, and his manner changed at once. He opened the door for an instant and threw on the down track his half-smoked cigarette; and then, smiling pleasantly, he walked firmly down the car, past a rustic bridal couple, and took a vacant seat just in front of Baby Van Rensselaer.
BABY VAN RENSSELAER: Who would have thought of seeing you here in this hot weather?
DEAR JONES: Can I have this seat or is it that I _mank_ at the _convenances_--as the French say?
BABY VAN RENSSELAER: It’s Uncle Larry’s chair--he’s gone back to talk to one of his vestrymen--he’s taking me to Shelter Island.
DEAR JONES: Shelter Island? How long are you going to stay there?
BABY VAN RENSSELAER: And where are you going?
DEAR JONES: I’m going to Sag Harbor to build a house for one of my billionaires.
BABY VAN RENSSELAER: Sag Harbor? What an extraordinary place for a house.
DEAR JONES: Oh, that’s nothing. Last year I had to build a house up in Chemung county.
DEAR JONES [_spelling it_]: C-h-e-m-u-n-g´--accent on the mung. You probably call it Cheémung, but it is really Sh’mung.
BABY VAN RENSSELAER: Where is it? and how do you get there?
DEAR JONES: By the _Chemung de fer_, of course.
DEAR JONES: You see, my mind is relaxed by the effort to build a house on the model of the one occupied by the old woman who lived in a shoe--and that variety of early English architecture is very wearing on the taste. What sort of a house is it you are going to at Shelter Island? And how long are you going to stay there?
BABY VAN RENSSELAER: Oh, it’s a stupid, old-fashioned place [_pause_]. Do you think that bride is pretty? I have been watching them ever since we left New York. They have been to town on their wedding-trip.