d frivolous. I am serious--and modest, I assure
you--when I speak of my gifts. I have, as you know, a pronounced gift at
repartee. Who knows what this might have become under proper
development? But it has been systematically snubbed, misunderstood,
dubbed impertinence, forsooth."

"If I remember aright, it was your gift of repartee that--wasn't it
something of that sort which severed your connection with college?"

"Yes, and here I am. That's where the shoe pinches. Ha! and by way of
literal illustration, speaking of the mal-adjustments of life, witness
this boot."

The speaker languidly extended his right foot.

"The fellow who first wore it had bunions, blast him, and I come into
his bunion-bulge with a short great toe. As a result, here I am in New
York in December, instead of absorbing sunshine and the odor of violets
in Jackson Square in New Orleans, with picturesqueness and color all
about me. No man could start South with such a boot as that.

"I do most cordially hope that the beastly vulgarian who shaped it has
gone, as my friend Mantalini would express it, 'to the demnition
bow-wows.' You see the beauty of the Bellamy business is that all
callings are equally worthy. As a social factor I should have made a
record, and would probably have gone into history as a wit."

"Condemn the history! You'd have gone into life, Humphrey. That's
enough. You'd have gone into the home--into your own bed at night--into
dinner in a dress-coat--into society, your element--into posterity in
your brilliant progeny, paterfamilias--"

"Enough, Colonel. There are some things--even from an old comrade like
yourself--"

"Beg pardon, Humphrey. No offence meant, I assure you.

"It's only when life's fires are burning pretty low that we may venture
to stir the coals and knock off the ashes a little.

"For myself, I don't mind confessing, Humphrey, that there have been
women--Don't start; there isn't even a Yule-log smouldering on my
heart's hearth to-day. I can stir the smoking embers safely. I say there
have been women--a woman I'll say, even--a nursemaid, whom I have seen
in this park--a perfect Juno. She was well-born I'd swear, by her
delicate ears, her instep, her curved nostrils--"

"Did you ever approach your goddess near enough to catch her curved
articulation, Colonel? Or doubtless it flowed in angles, Anglo-Saxon
pura."

"You are flippant, Humphrey. I say if this woman had had educational
advantages and--and if m