"Wrong. It's the most unexpected thing you ever dreamed of," Fuschia's voice was triumphant, "papa's got a social success. Yes," nodding impressively, "just look at him closely and you'll see that he's lost his natural, unconscious man-look. He now has a drawing-room-pet expression and he's wearing his hair differently, and throwing out his chest. Oh, you needn't laugh, Mr. Hepworth, it's true. 'Hyperion curls, the front of Jove himself.' When we were coming on I determined that I would always be very kind to papa. I'd never neglect nor ignore him, no matter how famous I became; but, of course, he'd just be Fuschia Fleming's father. But what are the real facts of the case? Father sits in the seats of the mighty, flattered by great ladies and avoids mention of his humble actress daughter. King Cophetua and the chorus girl!" "I had to come to New York to find out that the feminine boycott against me wasn't complete," said Mr. Fleming with emotion. "I tell you, Hep, it's a wonderful experience suddenly to realize that the entire crew of petticoats the world over don't look at you as if they all had glass eyes in their heads instead of real ones." "How do you account for it, Jim?" asked Hepworth. "From camp to court, my boy, has ever been but a step, although sometimes it's a mighty long one," returned Fleming oratorically. "Now this is the way I've explained it to myself. You see, I've got that wild, free, above-timber-line flavor about me that simply locos the type of woman that keeps husband hobbled to a stake under the big tree by the back porch where she can keep an eye on him from the kitchen windows. Now, personally, the catnip and parsley kind of woman never did appeal to me; but these New York orchids are different. They know how to appreciate the Rocky Mountain edelweiss, and seem grateful to me for taking their husbands off their hands now and then. And they're so interested, too, in the little every-day incidents of an old prospector's life." "You just ought to hear papa Othelloize those Ophelias," said Fuschia, deftly seizing the first opportunity to get into the conversation. "He'll tell them about being carried down a thousand feet in a mighty snowslide and escaping unhurt, and of the fabulous properties he's discovered, and of frequent encounters with enormous grizzlies, where he'll tap them lightly on the jaw and advise them to hasten home and then if they get too familiar, he gives them a twist of the wrist that sends them howling back to the woods." "Fuschia," said her father sternly, "you talk entirely too much, and there's a day of reckoning coming for you. Just wait till you get to London. There you'll be sneaking in at the back door and eating a cold biscuit in the pantry while you're waiting to do a few recitations for the ladies and gentlemen; while I'll be sailing in to dinner with a belted earless on one arm and a tiaraed duchess on the other."