pages, but happily married on
the tenth page or thereabouts, which, I take it for granted, will
be contained in the periodical where this is found, unless it
differ from all other publications of the kind. Perhaps, if such
young people will lay the number aside, and take it up ten years,
or a little more, from the present time, they may find something in
it for their advantage. They can't possibly understand it all
now.]

My friend, the Professor, began talking with me one day in a dreary
sort of way. I couldn't get at the difficulty for a good while,
but at last it turned out that somebody had been calling him an old
man.--He didn't mind his students calling him THE old man, he said.
That was a technical expression, and he thought that he remembered
hearing it applied to himself when he was about twenty-five. It
may be considered as a familiar and sometimes endearing
appellation. An Irishwoman calls her husband "the old man," and he
returns the caressing expression by speaking of her as "the old
woman." But now, said he, just suppose a case like one of these.
A young stranger is overheard talking of you as a very nice old
gentleman. A friendly and genial critic speaks of your green old
age as illustrating the truth of some axiom you had uttered with
reference to that period of life. What _I_ call an old man is a
person with a smooth, shining crown and a fringe of scattered white
hairs, seen in the streets on sunshiny days, stooping as he walks,
bearing a cane, moving cautiously and slowly; telling old stories,
smiling at present follies, living in a narrow world of dry habits;
one that remains waking when others have dropped asleep, and keeps
a little night-lamp-flame of life burning year after year, if the
lamp is not upset, and there is only a careful hand held round it
to prevent the puffs of wind from blowing the flame out. That's
what I call an old man.

Now, said the Professor, you don't mean to tell me that I have got
to that yet? Why, bless you, I am several years short of the time
when--[I knew what was coming, and could hardly keep from laughing;
twenty years ago he used to quote it as one of those absurd
speeches men of genius will make, and now he is going to argue from
it]--several years short of the time when Balzac says that men are
--most--you know--dangerous to--the hearts of--in short, most to be
dreaded by duennas that have charge of susceptible females.--What
age is that? said I, stati