"A what?" I asked.

"A 'bluenose.' So he was called in the restaurant, but he seemed not
offended about it. I have looked in my books; I can't find any disease of
that name."

With ill-suppressed laughter I asked, "Do you know Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland?"

"I hear the laugh in your voice," he said; then added, "Yes, I know both
these places."

"They are very cold and foggy and wet," I explained.

But with brightening eyes he caught up the sentence and continued:

"And the people have blue noses, eh? Ha! ha! Excuse me, then, but is a
milksop a man from some state, or some country, too?"

At tea some one used the word "claptrap." "What's that?" quickly demanded
the student in our midst. "'Claptrap'--'clap' is so (he struck his hands
together); 'trap' is for rats--what is, then, 'claptrap'?"

"It is a vulgar or unworthy bid for applause," I explained.

"Bah!" he contemptuously exclaimed. "I know him,--that cheap actor who
plays at the gallery. He is, then, in English a 'clap-trapper,' is he not?"

It was hardly possible to meet him without having a word or a term offered