world.

That tired expression on a bachelor's face is not so often the result of
brain-fag from an overworked mind as of heart-fag from overworking the
emotions.

Lovers look at life through rose-colored curtains; old bachelors see it
through a fog.

Somehow, a bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of
beauty and a boy forever!

A bachelor fancies that it is his wonderful sixty-horse will-power that
keeps him from marrying, whereas it is nothing but his little one-horse
_won't-power_.

One consolation in marrying a bachelor over forty is that he has fought
so long and so hard to escape the hook that there is no more fight left
in him.

Never give up hope as long as a bachelor declares definitely, "No woman
can _get_ me!" Wait until he is so sure of his immunity that he sighs
regretfully, "No woman will _have_ me!"

The "vicious circle" in a bachelor's opinion, is the platinum one on a
woman's third finger.

A Bachelor of Arts is one who makes love to a lot of women, and yet has
the art to remain a bachelor.

[Illustration]

FIRST INTERLUDE

IN the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns--and turns--and turns!

There are lots of "sure cures" for love, but the quickest and surest
is--_another love_.

If there were only two women and one man in the world, the man would
marry the brunette and then spend the rest of his life peeping over her
shoulder and trying to flirt with the blonde.

A woman always embalms the corpse of a dead love; a man wisely cremates
it, and plants a new love in the ashes.

A fool and her money are soon courted.

A woman's pity for a man who loves her against her will may be akin to
love; but a man's pity for a woman who loves him without his permission
is a twin brother to boredom.

Marriage is the miracle which affords a woman a chance to gratify her
vanity, pacify her family, mortify her rivals, and electrify her
friends, all at the same time. Marriage is sweet!

Love is what incites the caveman to drag a woman around by the hair and
makes the civilized man permit a woman to drag _him_ around by the nose.

The heart of a woman is a secret sanctuary where she is constantly
burning incense and candles before a succession of idols of clay.

Nowadays, a man's faith in women and heaven seems to disappear with his
milk-teeth and to reappear again with his false teeth.

To most men "repentance" is merely the interval between the headache and
the n