"Oh, I got through," said Jack. "I explained it all, you know. I
cleared up every thing in the completest way. In fact, I made a full,
perfect, intelligible, ample, and satisfactory explanation--"

"Oh, that's all downright bosh now, old boy," I interrupted. "How could
you explain it? It can't be explained."

"But I did though," said Jack. "I don't remember how. I only know the
letter struck me as just the thing, and I dropped it into the
post-office when on my way to the widow's."

"The widow's?"

"Yes, as soon as I finished the letter, I hurried off to the widow's."

"By Jove!" I cried, aghast "So that's the style of thing, is it? Look
here, old man, will you allow me to ask you, in the mildest manner in
the world, how long you consider yourself able to keep up this sort of
thing?"

"Allow you? Certainly not. No questions, old chap. I don't question
myself, and I'll be hanged if I'll let anybody else. I'm among the
breakers. I'm whirling down-stream. I have a strong sense of the
aptness of Louie's idea about the juggler and the oranges. But the
worst of it is, I'm beginning to lose confidence in myself."

And Jack leaned his head back, and sent out a long beam of smoke that
flew straight up and hit the ceiling. After which he stared at me in
unutterable solemnity.

"Well," said I, "go on. What about the widow?"

"The widow--oh--when I got there I found another row."

"Another?"

"Yes, another--the worst of all. But by this time I had grown used to
it, and I was as serene as a mountain-lake."

"But--the row--what was it about?"

"Oh, she had heard about my engagement to Miss Phillips, and her
arrival; so she at once began to talk to me like a father. The way she
questioned me--why the Grand Inquisitor is nothing to it. But she
didn't make any thing by it. You see I took up the Fabian tactics and
avoided a direct engagement."

"How's that?"

"Why, I wouldn't answer her."

"How could you avoid it?"

"Pooh I--easy enough--I sat and chaffed her, and laughed at her, and
called her jealous, and twitted her, no end. Well, you know, at last
she got laughing herself, and we made it all up, and all that sort of
thing, you know; still, she's very pertinacious, and even after we made
up she teased and teased, till she got an explanation out of me."

"An explanation! What, another?"

"Oh, yes--easy enough--I explained it all, you know, I cleared up every
thing perfectly. I made an ample, intelligible, full,