"H'm! The _Hwuyi_, or ideographic characters, rather than the ideophonetic!" He looked up at Billings and myself inquiringly. "Ha! I trust we start together in accord upon that conclusion, eh, gentlemen?" Billings nodded emphatically. "Surest thing you know," he declared firmly, and whispered to me triumphantly. "Didn't I tell him it was idiotic?" The professor's lips moved rapidly and his visage twisted into a horrible frown. "Why, why--a--what!" With mouth open, and gripping the pajamas tightly, he glared at us each in turn. "Oh, impossible!" he rasped harshly, seizing the lens and bending again. "Incredible--poof--absurd--tut, tut, what nonsense!" The glass swept the lines rapidly. Suddenly, with a cry, the professor dropped the lens, a violent start almost lifting him from the floor. "_Papauhegopoulos!_" he cried explosively, and whirled on us again. Dash me, if I didn't fall back a step, his eyes rolled so wildly. But Billings stood his ground, by Jove! "I didn't quite catch--" he began hesitatingly, angling his bristly red head forward and smiling pleasantly. The professor seemed abashed of a sudden. "H'm! Your pardon, gentlemen! Merely an expletive--h'm--a Greek word I indulge in sometimes when--when excited; a weakness, I might say. H'm!" He seized his lens again. Billings' eyes yielded admiration. "Great Scott, Dicky!" he whispered in my ear. "See what a thing education is! Think of being able to swear _in Greek_--in Greek, Dicky!" Billings' voice expressed awe. "Why, he's got an Erie Canal skipper backed clear off the board, and if he wanted to turn loose, I'll bet he could make a certain railway president I know look like a two-spot!" At this point the professor struck his fist angrily upon the pajamas. The face that he turned was unnaturally flushed and his chin quivered excitedly. "Ridiculous, I say! Poof!" He snapped his fingers. "Necromancy and thaumaturgy transmitted in pajamas! Absurd!" "Piffle!" said Billings emphatically. "Don't know what they are," he whispered to me, "but I'll take a hundred-to-one shot on anything he says. The professor's a corker!" "By Jove!" I remarked. "Perhaps Professor Huckleberry won't mind telling us--" "What I think, gentlemen? What _could_ I think but what I am sure is your own conclusion--though you have generously and considerately left me to form my own opinion--namely, that the claim of supernatural attributes of these garments is preposterous. Enchanted pajamas! Haunted pajamas! Poof! Nursery lore; children's fairy tales! Ghosts, gentlemen? Tut, tut--nonsense!" He snorted indignantly. "Ghosts!" faltered Billings. "Oh, I say!" I rather gasped. Dash me if it didn't give me a turn, rather! The professor shrugged his shoulders.