proposals than all the dimples and
bright eyes in the world. Eh, Jimmy? But you haven't proposed yet?"

"I did. You gave your consent."

"But you're not going to marry me. You want Lucy. You'll have to speak
to her about it."

"Now look, Mr. Putnam, I can come to you and ask you for her, and it's
the same thing."

"Not by a hundred miles, my boy. If I told Lucy you had said that, she
wouldn't be at home next time you called. The trouble with you is that
you don't understand women. You've got to talk direct to them."

Jimmy looked hopelessly out of the window.

"No; what you say to me and what I say to you hasn't any more to do with
you and Lucy than if you were selling me a bill of goods. I like you,
Jimmy, and I've watched your career so far with interest, and I look for
great things from you in the future, and that's why I say to you to go
ahead and get Lucy, and good luck to you both."

Mr. Putnam took up some papers from his desk and pretended to be
studying them, but from the tail of his eye he gathered the gloom that
was settling over Jimmy's face. The elder man enjoyed the situation.

"Well, Mr. Putnam," Jimmy asked, "why can't you just tell Lucy for me
that I have asked you, and that you say it's all right? Then when I go
to see her next time, it'll all be arranged and understood."

"Le' me see. Didn't I read a poem or something at school about some one
who hadn't sand enough to propose to a girl and who got another man to
ask her? But it wasn't her own father. Why, Jimmy, if you haven't
courage enough to propose to a girl, what do you suppose will be your
finish if she marries you? A married man has to have spunk."

"I've got the spunk all right, but you understand how I feel."

"Sure! Let me give you some advice. When you propose to a girl, you
don't have to come right out and ask her to marry you."

Jimmy caught at the straw.

"You don't?" he asked.

"Certainly not. There's half a dozen ways of letting her know that you
want her. Usually--always, I may say--she knows it anyway, and unless
she wants you she'll not let you tell her so. But if I wanted a short,
sharp 'No' from a girl, I'd get her father to ask her to marry me."

"Then you mean that I've got to ask her myself?"

"To be sure."

"I can't do it, Mr. Putnam; I can't."

"Write it."

"Why, I'd feel as if the postman and everybody else knew it."

"Telephone."

"Worse yet."

"Jim Minton, I'm disgusted with you. I thought you