Of course, I was in the
Percheron class, and so I just stood around with a lot of heavy old
draft horses, who ought to have been resting up in their stalls, and
watched the three-year-olds prance and cavort round the ring. Jack was
among them, of course, dancing with the youngest Churchill girl, and
holding her a little tighter, I thought, than was necessary to keep her
from falling. Had both ends working at once--never missed a stitch with
his heels and was turning out a steady stream of fancy work with his
mouth. And all the time he was looking at that girl as intent and eager
as a Scotch terrier at a rat hole.

I happened just then to be pinned into a corner with two or three women
who couldn't escape--Edith Curzon, a great big brunette whom I knew Jack
had been pretty soft on, and little Mabel Moore, a nice roly-poly blonde,
and it didn't take me long to see that they were watching Jack with a
hair-pulling itch in their finger-tips. In fact, it looked to me as if
the young scamp was a good deal more popular than the facts about him,
as I knew them, warranted him in being.

I slipped out early, but next evening, when I was sitting in my little
smoking-room, Jack came charging in, and, without any sparring for an
opening, burst out with:

"Isn't she a stunner, Mr. Graham!"

I allowed that Miss Curzon was something on the stun.

"Miss Curzon, indeed," he sniffed. "She's well enough in a big, black
way, but Miss Churchill----" and he began to paw the air for adjectives.

"But how was I to know that you meant Miss Churchill?" I answered. "It's
just a fortnight now since you told me that Miss Curzon was a goddess,
and that she was going to reign in your life and make it a heaven, or
something of that sort. I forget just the words, but they were mighty
beautiful thoughts and did you credit."

"Don't remind me of it," Jack groaned. "It makes me sick every time I
think what an ass I've been."

I allowed that I felt a little nausea myself, but I told him that this
time, at least, he'd shown some sense; that Miss Churchill was a mighty
pretty girl and rich enough so that her liking him didn't prove anything
worse against her than bad judgment; and that the thing for him to do
was to quit his foolishness, propose to her, and dance the heel, toe,
and a one, two, three with her for the rest of his natural days.

Jack hemmed and hawked a little over this, but finally he came out with
it:

"That's the deuce of it," says