headlong and
silly. She cried over it, and wouldn't kiss me in the dark; and I was
goaded into saying--well, the course of true love ran in bumps that
night. There was only one redeeming circumstance, and that was my
managing to keep Jones and Eleanor apart. I mean that I insisted on
being number three till at last poor Eleanor said she had a headache,
and forlornly went up to bed.

Jones was still asleep when I got up the next morning at six and dressed
myself quietly so as not to awake him. It was now Monday, and you can
see for yourself there was no time to spare. I gave the butler a dollar,
and ordered him to say that unexpected business had called me away
without warning, but that I should be back by luncheon. I rather overdid
the earliness of it all. At least, I hove off 1892 Eighth Avenue at
eight-fifteen A.M. I loitered about; looked at pawnshop windows; gave a
careful examination to a forty-eight-dollar-ninety-eight-cent complete
outfit for a four-room flat; had a chat with a policeman; assisted at a
runaway; advanced a nickel to a colored gentleman in distress; had my
shoes shined by another; helped a child catch an escaped parrot--and
still it wasn't nine! Idleness is a grinding occupation, especially on
Eighth Avenue in the morning.

Mrs. Jones was a thin, straight-backed, brisk old lady, with a keen
tongue, and a Yankee faculty for coming to the point. I besought her
indulgence, and laid the whole Eleanor matter before her--at least, as
much of it as seemed wise. I appeared in the role of her son's warmest
admirer and best friend.

"Surely you won't let Harry ruin his life from a mistaken sense of his
duty to you?"

"Duty, fiddlesticks!" said she. "He's going to marry Bertha McNutt!"

"But he doesn't want to marry Bertha McNutt!"

"Then he needn't marry anybody."

She seemed to think this a triumphant answer. Indeed, in some ways I
must confess it was. But still I persevered.

"It puts me out to have him shilly-shallying around like this," she
said. "I'll give him a good talking to when he gets back. This other
arrangement has been understood between Mrs. McNutt and myself for
years."

She was an irritating person. I found it not a little difficult to keep
my temper with her. It's easier to fight dragons than to temporize with
them and appeal to their better nature. I appealed and appealed. She
watched me with the same air of interested detachment that one gives to
a squirrel revolving in a cag