t least. A man would find
out, for instance, how much there was in him besides personal vanity and
love of approbation. It would be a devilish small residue with most of
us, I fancy."

The talk took a new turn, and the fun grew fast and furious around Hunt,
who sat puffing his pipe, absorbed in contemplation. At about half-past
nine, when things were getting hilarious, he beat a retreat, followed by
the reproaches of the fellows. He was determined to administer the first
dose of Potts's painless cure to his interesting patient that very
evening, if she had not already retired. He was in high good humor.
Potts was a brick; Potts was a genius. How lucky that he had happened to
go up to college that night! He felt as if an incubus were lifted off
his mind. No more pangs of conscience and uncomfortable sense of being a
mean and cruel fellow, for him. Annie should be glad to be rid of him
before he had ended with her. She should experience a heartfelt relief,
instead of a broken heart, on his departure. He could n't help
chuckling. He had such confidence in his nerve and his reticent habit
that his confidence and ability to carry out the scheme were undoubting,
and at its first suggestion he had felt almost as much relief as if he
had already executed it.

On arriving home, he found Annie sewing alone in the parlor, and a
little offish in manner by way of indicating her sense of his offense in
leaving her to spend the evening alone.

"Really, Annie," he said, as he sat down and unfolded the evening paper,
"I try to give you all the time I can spare. If, instead of sulking,
you had taken a piece of paper and calculated how many hours this week
I have managed to give you my company, you would scarcely have felt like
repining because you could n't see me for an hour or two this evening."

That was the first gun of the campaign. She looked up in blank surprise,
too much astonished, for the moment, to be indignant at such a vulgarly
conceited remark from him. Without giving her time to speak, he proposed
to read the newspaper aloud, and at once began, making a point of
selecting the dullest editorials and the flattest items and witticisms,
enlivening them with occasional comments of studied insipidity, and
one or two stories, of which he carefully left out the "nubs." He was
apparently making an unusual effort all the while to be entertaining,
and Annie, finding no opening for expressing her vexation, finally
excused herself