llowance for the personal equation--"

"Grisly ass! Well, then, what's the matter with the army?"

"My prudence is such," responded Mr. Boland dreamily--"in fact, my
prudence is so very such, indeed--one may almost say so extremely
such--not to mention the pertinent and trenchant question so well
formulated by the little Peterkin--"

"Why don't you marry?"

"Ha!" said Francis Charles.

"Whachamean--'Ha'?"

"I mean what the poet meant when he spoke so feelingly of the

"------eager boys
Who might have tasted girl's love and been stung."

"Didn't say it. Who?"

"Did, too! William Vaughn Moody. So I say 'Ha!' in the deepest and
fullest meaning of the word; and I will so defend it with my life."

"If you were good and married once, you might not be such a fool," said
Sedgwick hopefully.

"Take any form but this"--Mr. Boland inflated his chest and held himself
oratorically erect--"and my firm nerves shall never tremble! I have
tracked the tufted pocolunas to his lair; I have slain the eight-legged
galliwampus; I have bearded the wallipaloova in his noisome den, and
gazed into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian liar; and I'll
try everything once--except this. But I have known too many too-charming
girls too well. To love them," said Francis Charles sadly, "was a
business education."

He lit a cigar, clasped his hands behind his head, tilted his chair
precariously, and turned a blissful gaze to the little rift of sky beyond
the crowding maples.

Mr. Boland was neither tall nor short; neither broad nor slender; neither
old nor young. He wore a thick mop of brown hair, tinged with chestnut in
the sun. His forehead was broad and high and white and shapely. His eyes
were deep-set and wide apart, very innocent, very large, and very brown,
fringed with long lashes that any girl might envy. There the fine
chiseling ceased. Ensued a nose bold and broad, freckled and inclined to
puggishness; a wide and generous mouth, quirky as to the corners of it;
high cheek bones; and a square, freckled jaw--all these ill-assorted
features poised on a strong and muscular neck.

Sedgwick, himself small and dark and wiry, regarded Mr. Boland with a
scorning and deprecatory--but with private approval.

"You're getting on, you know. You're thirty--past. I warn you."

"Ha!" said Francis Charles again.

Sedgwick raised his voice appealingly.

"Hi, Thompson! Here a minute! Shouldn't Francis Charles marry?"

"Ab-so-lute-ly!