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ked inquiringly at Billings. He just sat there kind of drooping, and shook his head. "I'm all in," he motioned with his lips; and he wiped his forehead. "Ah, gentlemen!" exclaimed the professor, coming back again, "what a thing this little Chinese woman did for civilization when she gave the world silk culture and invented the loom! No wonder the Chinese deified her as a goddess." "Goddess!" Billings swallowed hard. "And did these--h'm--garments belong to the lady?" The professor frowned at him in surprise. "Garments?" "Them," said Billings in devilish questionable grammar, pointing to the table. "They are pajamas, you know." "Ha!" ejaculated the professor, holding them up. "So they are. You are very observing, sir, very. Now, I had not noticed that at all; I was so interested in the material itself--the wonderful silk of Si-Ling-Chi, gentlemen. Ha! Indeed a rare privilege!" By Jove! He stroked the stuff lightly, tenderly--as one likes to do a little child's hair, don't you know. "Beautiful, beautiful fabric," he sighed half to himself. "Only once before have I seen a piece of it--but it was enough; I could never, never forget." Something like a groan escaped him. Billings angled his head toward me and tightly compressed one eye. "H'm! Something in the petticoat line--eh, Professor?" The professor's face wrinkled with the most matter-of-fact surprise. "Petticoat?" he piped querulously. "You are forgetting that the petticoat is a vestment unknown in China." "Oh, in China! I was thinking of Paree," chuckled Billings, with a gay air and another glance at me. Then his nerve withered under the professor's blank stare, and he added hurriedly: "H'm! So it was in China you saw the other piece of silk?" The professor sighed profoundly. His reply came dreamily, regretfully: "In the Purple Forbidden City; but I was not quick enough." "Not quick enough?" Billings' echo was solicitous, sympathetic. "It was among the palace treasures, the imperial properties--things unhappily lost to the world and civilization. Ah, gentlemen, I erred; I committed a fatal mistake; it has been a matter of deep mortification to me often!" His head wagged somberly. Billings looked a little embarrassed and rubbed his chin. "H'm!" he coughed. "I guess we all slip a cog now and then. I know I've done things myself I've been rather ash--" "I erred, gentlemen," went on the professor, "in trusting most unscientifically
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