while Officer was shuffling the cards, "your auger
seems well oiled and working keen to-night. Suppose you give us that
little experience of yours in love affairs. It will be a treat to
those of us who have never been in love, and won't interrupt the game
a particle. Cut loose, won't you?"

"It's a long time back," said Quarternight, meditatively, "and the
scars have all healed, so I don't mind telling it. I was born and
raised on the border of the Blue Grass Region in Kentucky. I had the
misfortune to be born of poor but honest parents, as they do in
stories; no hero ever had the advantage of me in that respect. In love
affairs, however, it's a high card in your hand to be born rich. The
country around my old home had good schools, so we had the advantage
of a good education. When I was about nineteen, I went away from home
one winter to teach school--a little country school about fifteen
miles from home. But in the old States fifteen miles from home makes
you a dead rank stranger. The trustee of the township was shucking
corn when I went to apply for the school. I simply whipped out my peg
and helped him shuck out a shock or two while we talked over school
matters. The dinner bell rang, and he insisted on my staying for
dinner with him. Well, he gave me a better school than I had asked
for--better neighborhood, he said--and told me to board with a certain
family who had no children; he gave his reasons, but that's
immaterial. They were friends of his, so I learned afterwards. They
proved to be fine people. The woman was one of those kindly souls who
never know where to stop. She planned and schemed to marry me off in
spite of myself. The first month that I was with them she told me all
about the girls in that immediate neighborhood. In fact, she rather
got me unduly excited, being a youth and somewhat verdant. She dwelt
powerful heavy on a girl who lived in a big brick house which stood
back of the road some distance. This girl had gone to school at a
seminary for young ladies near Lexington,--studied music and painting
and was 'way up on everything. She described her to me as black-eyed
with raven tresses, just like you read about in novels.

"Things were rocking along nicely, when a few days before Christmas a
little girl who belonged to the family who lived in the brick house
brought me a note one morning. It was an invitation to take supper
with them the following evening. The note was written in a pretty
hand,