rdly young enough for
them yet; but I invested in half a dozen ties of quite a tasty design."

"_You_ bought half a dozen ties!" exclaimed Andrew.

"I did; and you're welcome to any of them you like. Or will you come
with me and we'll choose something?"

"Thank you," replied his son sardonically; "but on the whole I'd sooner
trust to nature."

"In that case, Heaven help you, my poor boy! You have your good points,
but beauty's not among them. Imagine you as a statue, Andrew! Eh?"

The worthy gentleman laughed genially, but the unhappy lover did not
join in his mirth.

"I am glad I amuse you," he said, and rose to leave the table.

"Sit down, sit down, man," his father commanded; "I haven't half
finished with you yet. Have you read any poetry to her?"

"I have not."

"Well, read some; try a bit of--er--I'm not so well up in the poets as I
hope to be soon, but I fancy Byron has written some very stimulating
verses; or why go over the border for them--why not try her with Burns?
What's finer than--

"'Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we--um--um--sae blindly,
Never--something--um--um--parted,
We should--something about being broken-hearted?'"

"It's very sentimental, I've no doubt," answered the junior partner, in
a tone which implied that he was uttering the last word in caustic
criticism.

But his father merely grew the more enthusiastic.

"And what else have you got to be but sentimental? My dear boy, my eyes
have been opened this very afternoon. I've never been sentimental
enough with my children; and what's the consequence? Here's you letting
a pretty girl slip through your fingers because you don't let yourself
loose on her! Now what you ought to say to her is something like this:
'My own darling--or sweetheart--or even duckie,'--use some popular
symbol, as it were, of affection,--'I am so passionately'--or fervently,
if you like--let us say, 'so fervently in love with you that I can't
hold out'--or perhaps you might find a better word than that; you want
to inflame the lassie without startling her. 'I can't endure'--that's a
better word--'I can't endure for another month. Marry me four weeks from
to-day!' And there you have the whole thing done."

Andrew had remained standing beside the table.

"Is that all now?" he inquired.

His father regarded him with a fine jovial scorn, much as Sir John
Falstaff might have regarded the inventor of lemonade.

"I doubt you're a hopeles