k come downtown and lunch with me, but when I started him off,
about two o'clock, he looked so like a cat padding up the back-stairs to
where she knows there's a little canary meat--scared, but happy--that I
said once more: "Now be firm, Jack."

"Firm's the word, sir," was the resolute answer.

"And unyielding."

"As the old guard." And Jack puffed himself out till he was as chesty as
a pigeon on a barn roof, and swung off down the street looking mighty
fine and manly from the rear.

I never really got the straight of it, but I pieced together these
particulars later. At the corner there was a flower store. Jack stepped
inside and sent a box of roses by special messenger to Miss Curzon, so
there might be something to start conversation when he got there. Two
blocks farther on he passed a second florist's, turned back and sent
some lilies to Miss Moore, for fear she might think he'd forgotten her
during the hour or more before he could work around to her house. Then
he chased about and found a third florist, from whom he ordered some
violets for Miss Churchill, to remind her that she had promised him the
first dance at the Blairs' that night. Your Ma told me that Jack had
nice instincts about these little things which women like, and always
put a good deal of heavy thought into selecting his flowers for them.
It's been my experience that a critter who has instincts instead of
sense belongs in the bushes with the dicky-birds.

No one ever knew just what happened to Jack during the next three hours.
He showed up at his club about five o'clock with a mighty conceited set
to his jaw, but it dropped as if the spring had broken when he caught
sight of me waiting for him in the reading-room.

"You here?" he asked as he threw himself into a chair.

"You bet," I said. "I wanted to hear how you made out. You settled the
whole business, I take it?" but I knew mighty well from his looks that
he hadn't settled anything.

"Not--not exactly--that is to say, entirely; but I've made a very
satisfactory beginning."

"Began it all over again, I suppose."

This hit so near the truth that Jack jumped, in spite of himself, and
then he burst out with a really swear. I couldn't have been more
surprised if your Ma had cussed.

"Damn it, sir, I won't stand any more of your confounded meddling. Those
letters were a piece of outrageous brutality. I'm breaking off with the
girls, but I've gone about it in a gentler and, I hope, more dig