t women, but here is a chapter I've yet to read.
Come, now, Charley, be frank with me; tell me all you know."

"My poor Fred, if you were not head and ears in love, you would see as
plainly as I do that your affairs prosper. And after all, how invariable
is it that the man who has been the veriest flirt with women,--sighing,
serenading, sonneteering, flinging himself at the feet of every pretty girl
he meets with,--should become the most thorough dupe to his own feelings
when his heart is really touched. Your man of eight-and-thirty is always
the greatest fool about women."

"Confound your impertinence! How the devil can a fellow with a mustache not
stronger that a Circassian's eyebrow read such a lecture to _me?_"

"Just for the very reason you've mentioned. You _glide_ into an attachment
at _my_ time of life; you _fall_ in love at _yours_."

"Yes," said Power, musingly, "there is some truth in that. This flirting is
sad work. It is just like sparring with a friend; you put on the gloves in
perfect good humor, with the most friendly intentions of exchanging a few
amicable blows; you find yourself insensibly warm with the enthusiasm of
the conflict, and some unlucky hard knock decides the matter, and it ends
in a downright fight.

"Few men, believe me, are regular seducers; and among those who behave
'vilely' (as they call it), three-fourths of the number have been more
sinned against than sinning. You adventure upon love as upon a voyage to
India. Leaving the cold northern latitudes of first acquaintance behind
you, you gradually glide into the warmer and more genial climate of
intimacy. Each day you travel southward shortens the miles and the hours of
your existence; so tranquil is the passage, and so easy the transition, you
suffer no shock by the change of temperature about you. Happy were it for
us that in our courtship, as in our voyage, there were some certain Rubicon
to remind us of the miles we have journeyed! Well were it if there were
some meridian in love!"

"I'm not sure, Fred, that there is not that same shaving process they
practise on the line, occasionally performed for us by parents and
guardians at home; and I'm not certain that the iron hoop of old Neptune is
not a pleasanter acquaintance than the hair-trigger of some indignant
and fire-eating brother. But come, Fred, you have not told me the most
important point,--how fare your fortunes now; or in other words, what are
your present prospects as