since you have returned to the path of rectitude. Do you think you
belonged to Our Society in those days, Bob?"

"Yes, sir: I did, in embryo. I had it in me to develop into the ornament
of our species you behold at present. That's all a boy is good for,
anyway. He thinks he's somebody, but he isn't. He doesn't amount to
anything, except in the fond hopes of his anxious parents. He knows
nothing, and he can do nothing, except learn by his blunders; and some
of 'em can't do that. But if he has any stuff in him, he grows and
ripens with time, as you and I did. What bosh, to put the prime of life
at twenty-five. They ought to move it on a bit; about our age, now, a
man ought to be at his best."

"I don't know, Bob. I was an egregious ass at twenty-five, and I'm not
sure I'm any better now."

"Then there's hope of you, my boy. But one must go on getting
experience. You shut the door too soon and too tight, Jim."

"When I had it open, such an infernal stench and dust came in, that it
seemed best to close it. But it's open again now, partly, and this seems
a healthier and cleaner atmosphere."

"You'll come out all right, Jim; and when you do, you won't seem to have
been altogether wrong all these years. You've kept yourself unspotted
from the world, more than most of us; and when you come to know a girl
like Clarice, you'll want the most and best of you, to be fit for her
society. If only one could get the general ripening without some of the
dashed details of the process! She makes you wish you could have been
brought up in a bandbox, if only you could have come out of it a man and
not a mollycoddle."

"Only 'men-maidens in their purity' are worthy to approach her, no
doubt. Apparently I am not. I'll have to be content with your account of
Miss Elliston's perfections, Robert. She seems to have no more use for
me than the Texans for the Sheriff. But I am doing very nicely, thanks
to your sister. I doubt if you appreciate Miss Jane, Bob. She sees
further into things than you do. She impresses me as a sound-hearted
woman, wise, kind, and gracious."

"Yes, and so sisterly and appreciative. O yes, such a superior person as
she is! But see here, Jim; that's not what you're here for. Jane is all
very well in her way, but----"

He turned on me suddenly. "What the deuce do you mean now?"

By Jove, now I've done it: he's got me in a corner.--You just wait and
see me get out of it. "O well, Jim, I speak only by general analog