--'"
"Oh, here!" exclaimed the wretched Bert, jumping to his feet; "let up
on that dismal recitative. It would make a dog howl to hear that!"
"Then you 'let up' on that suicidal talk of marrying," replied John,
"and all that harangue of incoherency about your growing old. Why, my
dear fellow, you're at least a dozen years my junior, and look at me!"
and John glanced at himself in the glass with a feeble pride, noting
the gray sparseness of his side-hair, and its plaintive dearth on top.
"Of course I've got to admit," he continued, "that my hair is
gradually evaporating; but for all that, I'm 'still in the ring,'
don't you know; as young in society, for the matter of that, as
yourself! And this is just the reason why I don't want you to blight
every prospect in your life by marrying at your age--especially a
woman--I mean the kind of woman you'd be sure to fancy at your age."
"Didn't I say 'a good, sensible girl' was the kind I had selected?"
Bert remonstrated.
"Oh!" exclaimed John, "you've selected her, then?--and without one
word to me!" he ended, rebukingly.
"Well, hang it all!" said Bert, impatiently; "I knew how _you_ were,
and just how you'd talk me out of it; and I made up my mind that for
once, at least, I'd follow the dictations of a heart that--however
capricious in youthful frivolties--should beat, in manhood, loyal to
itself and loyal to its own affinity.
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