or sit
in the Mausoleum Club listening to the advice of people who told him
that he really ought to get married.

* * * * *

In those days the first thing that one noticed about Mr. Peter
Spillikins was his exalted view of the other sex. Every time he passed
a beautiful woman in the street he said to himself, "I say!" Even when
he met a moderately beautiful one he murmured, "By Jove!" When an
Easter hat went sailing past, or a group of summer parasols stood
talking on a leafy corner, Mr. Spillikins ejaculated, "My word!" At the
opera and at tango teas his projecting blue eyes almost popped out of
his head.

Similarly, if he happened to be with one of his friends, he would
murmur, "I say, _do_ look at that beautiful girl," or would exclaim, "I
say, don't look, but isn't that an awfully pretty girl across the
street?" or at the opera, "Old man, don't let her see you looking, but
do you see that lovely girl in the box opposite?"

One must add to this that Mr. Spillikins, in spite of his large and
bulging blue eyes, enjoyed the heavenly gift of short sight. As a
consequence he lived in a world of amazingly beautiful women. And as
his mind was focused in the same way as his eyes he endowed them with
all the virtues and graces which ought to adhere to fifty-dollar
flowered hats and cerise parasols with ivory handles.

Nor, to do him justice, did Mr. Spillikins confine his attitude to his
view of women alone. He brought it to bear on everything. Every time he
went to the opera he would come away enthusiastic, saying, "By Jove,
isn't it simply splendid! Of course I haven't the ear to appreciate
it--I'm not musical, you know--but even with the little that I know,
it's great; it absolutely puts me to sleep." And of each new novel that
he bought he said, "It's a perfectly wonderful book! Of course I
haven't the head to understand it, so I didn't finish it, but it's
simply thrilling." Similarly with painting, "It's one of the most
marvellous pictures I ever saw," he would say. "Of course I've no eye
for pictures, and I couldn't see anything in it, but it's wonderful!"

The career of Mr. Spillikins up to the point of which we are speaking
had hitherto not been very satisfactory, or at least not from the point
of view of Mr. Boulder, who was his uncle and trustee. Mr. Boulder's
first idea had been to have Mr. Spillikins attend the university. Dr.
Boomer, the president, had done his best to spread abroad th