For it must be
explained that the stovepipe hat, in that day and that country, was
dedicated only to the most momentous social occasions and that,
consequently, gentlemen wore it to go courting.
"Yes!" declared Seffy again.
"Bring forth the stovepipe,
The stovepipe, the stovepipe--"
chanted Seffy's frivolous father in the way of the Anvil Chorus.
"And my butterfly necktie with--"
"Wiss the di'mond on?" whispered his father.
They laughed in confidence of their secret. Seffy, the successful wooer,
was thawing out again. The diamond was not a diamond at all--the Hebrew
who sold it to Seffy had confessed as much. But he also swore that if it
were kept in perfect polish no one but a diamond merchant could tell the
difference. Therefore, there being no diamond merchant anywhere near,
and the jewel being always immaculate, Seffy presented it as a diamond
and had risen perceptibly in the opinion of the vicinage.
"And--and--and--Sef--Seffy, what you goin' to _do_?"
"Do?"
Seffy had been absorbed in what he was going to wear. "Yas--yas--that's
the most important." He encircled Seffy's waist and gently squeezed it.
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