ghted up,
and smoked till--yes--I'll be hanged if it wasn't half-past two. And
you didn't come. What do you mean, my good fellow, by that sort of
thing?"

"Oh," said I, meekly, "I was passing the evening with a friend."

"The evening! The night you mean."

"Well, it was rather late," said I. "The fact is, we got talking, and I
was telling him about my adventure on the ice. We had been at the
concert first, and then I went with him to his quarters. By-the-way,
why weren't you there?"

In this dexterous way I parried Jack's question, for I did not feel
inclined just yet to return his confidence. I am by nature, as the
reader must by this time have seen, uncommonly reticent and reserved,
and I wasn't going to pour out my story and my feelings to Jack, who
would probably go and tell it everywhere before the close of the day.

"The concert!" cried Jack, contemptuously--"the concert! My dear boy,
are you mad? What's a concert to me or I to a concert? A concert? My
dear fellow, what kind of an idea have you formed of me, if you think
that I am capable of taking part in any festive scene when my soul is
crushed under such an accumulated burden of fuss and bother?"

"What, are you bothered still? Haven't you begun to see your way
through the woods?"

"See my way?" cried Jack. "Why, it's getting worse and worse--"

"Worse? I thought you had reached the worst when you were repulsed by
Louie. What worse thing can happen than that? Weren't all your thoughts
on death intent? Didn't you repeat your order for a gravestone?"

"True, old boy; very correct; but then I was just beginning to rally,
you know, and all that, when down comes a new bother, and, if I weren't
so uncommonly fruitful in resource, this day would have seen an end of
Jack Randolph. I see you're rather inclined to chaff me about the
gravestone, but I tell you what it is, Macrorie, if this sort of thing
continues you'll be in for it. I've pulled through this day, but
whether I can pull through to-morrow or not is a very hard thing to
say."

At this Jack struck a match, and solemnly lighted his pipe, which all
this time he had been filling.

"'Pon my word, old chap," said I, "you seem bothered again, and
cornered, and all that. What's up? Any thing new? Out with it, and pour
it info this sympathetic ear."

Jack gave about a dozen solemn puffs. Then he removed his pipe with his
left hand. Then with his right hand he stroked his brow. Then he said,
slowly an