en haven't our sense of humor, Jim: their humble
efforts at jocosity are apt to be exaggerated, or flat--generally both;
but they mean no harm."

"Well, Bob, your preparations to instruct my ignorance are highly
successful. All this is as good as a play. You see you are found out,
old humbug; everybody sees through you. You can't delude any of us any
more."

"I don't quite see what you're driving at, my christian friend; but I'm
glad you like us, and I hope you'll like us better before you are done
with us." When he talks like this, I am content to see the hand of Fate
snatch at his scalp, as it will before long. Gibe on, ungrateful mocker:
retribution will soon overtake you in your mad career. Where then will
be your gibes, your quips, your quiddities? You'll want my sympathy by
and by, and I'll see about giving it.

"You needn't be so much cast down, Bob. Perhaps you are building me up
better than you know. Your struggles with your womankind give a flavor
to what I used to suppose must be insipid. You are pretty well satisfied
with each other, or you wouldn't pretend to quarrel so. What I saw of
you before did something toward reconciling me to human nature at large,
and your quaint efforts at shrewdness and finesse set off your real
character. You might take in outsiders, but not me."

"This is too much, my friend--a blanked sight too much. Crushed to earth
by such unmerited compliments, I can only repeat my gratification that
we meet with your approval. You settle down, and you'll see how insipid
it is: then you'll be making some quaint efforts at shrewdness and
finesse yourself. Invite me then, and I'll get even with you, old man.
But I say, what did you mean about my being a cub at college?"

"Well, you were, you know. Barmaids and ballet-dancers, and that sort of
thing."

"Confound you, Hartman, what do you go bringing them up for? There was
only one of each, or thereabouts, and they were generally old enough to
be my mothers. I was but a child, Jim--a guileless, merry, high-hearted
boy, and innocent as the lamb unshorn."

"You were that, and the shearing did you a lot of good. O, you can be
easy; I'll not bring up the sins of your youth."

"They were no sins, only follies. I had my early Pendennis stage, of
course, and invested every woman I met with the hues of imagination. But
Mabel and the girls might not understand that."

"I don't think they would. Happily, it is not necessary they should try
to,