ering trees alone----"

"I don't care what you would have thought. I can't do it."

"Oh, come!"

"I can't. She seems so aloof, so remote."

"She doesn't."

"Yes, she does. Especially when you see her sideways. Have you seen her
sideways, Bertie? That cold, pure profile. It just takes all the heart
out of one."

"It doesn't."

"I tell you it does. I catch sight of it, and the words freeze on my
lips."

He spoke with a sort of dull despair, and so manifest was his lack of
ginger and the spirit that wins to success that for an instant, I
confess, I felt a bit stymied. It seemed hopeless to go on trying to
steam up such a human jellyfish. Then I saw the way. With that
extraordinary quickness of mine, I realized exactly what must be done if
this Fink-Nottle was to be enabled to push his nose past the judges' box.

"She must be softened up," I said.

"Be what?"

"Softened up. Sweetened. Worked on. Preliminary spadework must be put in.
Here, Gussie, is the procedure I propose to adopt: I shall now return to
the house and lug this Bassett out for a stroll. I shall talk to her of
hearts that yearn, intimating that there is one actually on the premises.
I shall pitch it strong, sparing no effort. You, meanwhile, will lurk on
the outskirts, and in about a quarter of an hour you will come along and
carry on from there. By that time, her emotions having been stirred, you
ought to be able to do the rest on your head. It will be like leaping on
to a moving bus."

I remember when I was a kid at school having to learn a poem of sorts
about a fellow named Pig-something--a sculptor he would have been, no
doubt--who made a statue of a girl, and what should happen one morning
but that the bally thing suddenly came to life. A pretty nasty shock for
the chap, of course, but the point I'm working round to is that there
were a couple of lines that went, if I remember correctly:

_She starts. She moves. She seems to feel
The stir of life along her keel._

And what I'm driving at is that you couldn't get a better description of
what happened to Gussie as I spoke these heartening words. His brow
cleared, his eyes brightened, he lost that fishy look, and he gazed at
the slug, which was still on the long, long trail with something
approaching bonhomie. A marked improvement.

"I see what you mean. You will sort of pave the way, as it were."

"That's right. Spadework."

"It's a terrific idea, Bertie. It will make all the differe