ters none.
She meets this dame half way in the hall and the minute they seen each
other they fall together in fond embrace. I found out later they'd
known each other as long as a week and the last time they met was an
hour before.

Well, we get introduced all around and then this bird which invented a
lock that nobody on earth could open, includin' himself, goes out on
the fire escape followed by his charmin' wife. They entered their flat
by the novel method of usin' the kitchen window. This guy didn't open
his mouth from the time he come in till he went out, and when spoke to,
he blushed all over and acted like he wished to Heaven he could hide
under the sofa. His wife, though, had nothin' against conversation as
a sport. She was talkin' when she come in and she went out the same
way. I never seen nobody in my life who could talk as fast and
frequent as this dame and if her husband had hung that trick lock on
her tongue he would of made himself solid with me!

"That's that lovely Mrs. Simmons," says the wife, when they had went.
"It's too bad her husband ain't a live one."

"Gettin' married has buried many a good man!" I says.

"It didn't change _you_ none," she says. "You was a dead one when I
got you!"

"Here!" butts in Alex. "Don't you people get started again! I wanna
finish my supper in peace. What's wrong with Mister Simmons?"

"He ain't got no pep," says the wife. "They's many a more ambitious
man than he is with a tomb around him! He's been keepin' books for
twenty dollars a week since the discovery of arithmetic, and he ain't
got a raise since they blowed up the _Maine_. He's afraid to ask for
more money for fear the boss will find out he's on the pay roll and
fire him. They's one ounce more brains in a billiard ball than they is
in his head. He--"

"Wait!" interrupts Alex. "This here sounds interestin' to me. In the
first place, they ain't a doubt in my mind but what you got that feller
figured all wrong! Like all the rest of you simple minded and innocent
New Yorkers, you get brains and _imagination_ mixed. They is a big
difference! _Brains_ is what puts a man over, and _imagination_ is
what keeps him back. The ideal combination is all brains and no
imagination! The feller with brains sets his mind on what he wants,
forgets everything else, goes to it and gets it. He don't for a minute
consider what might happen if he fails, or that the thing he proposes
has never been done be