I hoped to learn some details,
but I was disappointed. Jean was herself a trifle radiant, perhaps,
for she remarked to me, apropos of nothing, and in the most casual way,
that men were dull, and Harlson had little to say. Judging from his
general demeanor, though, and the expression on his face, I would have
given something to know what he said to his wife when he reached home
the night before. Something no bachelor, I imagine, could comprehend.

And before the year ended Harlson had the Ninth Ward so that it
couldn't bolt him under any ordinary circumstances.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THEIR FOOLISH WAYS.

It is, as I have said so often, but the simple story of two friends of
mine I am trying to tell, but I wish I had more gift in that direction.
I wish I could paint, just as an artist with brush and colors
reproduces something, the home life in the house where much of my time
was spent. I can but give a mechanical idea of what it was, but to me
it was very pleasant.

A very shrewd politician Jean became, after the famous contest in which
the Ninth Ward aided us to victory, and we were accustomed to consult
her on the social bearings of many a struggle. In case she became too
arbitrary on any occasion Grant had fallen into the way of calling the
Ape, and asking him to remove her, whereupon the youth would carry off
his small mother in his arms and insist that, as he put it, from a
childhood expression, with a long "a," she "'have herself." There was
ever this quality of the whimsical about life in this home. And I am
inclined to believe that the world is better for such a flavor.

The children, were well grown now, the family was rounded out, and
Grant's mustache, gray when he was forty, was now grayer still, though
Jean's brown hair showed yet no glint of silver. I asked one day after
dinner, when we two were idling and smoking in the library, and Jean
was hovering about, if she hadn't a gray hair yet, and Grant said no,
without hesitation, though the lady herself seemed less assured. Then
happened a curious thing, at least to me. I asked Grant how he knew so
well, if even his wife, who, being a woman and fair to look upon, would
be naturally apprehensive of any change in aspect, could not tell if a
gray hair had come, and he but laughed at me. "Come here, Jean," he
said.

She came and stood, beside him, close to me.

"Alf," said he, "I have a vast opinion of you, but there are some
things I imagine yo