ng way?"

"I was laughing," explained Sam with dignity.

Sir Mallaby shook his head.

"I don't want to discourage your high spirits, but I must ask you to
approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good,
Sam. It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I was
two years younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and it
was the making of me. A wife might make something of you."

"Impossible!"

"I don't see why she shouldn't. There's lots of good in you, my boy,
though you may not think so."

"When I said it was impossible," said Sam coldly, "I was referring to
the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was impossible
that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. My
heart is dead."

"Your what?"

"My heart."

"Don't be a fool. There's nothing wrong with your heart. All our family
have had hearts like steam-engines. Probably you have been feeling a
sort of burning. Knock off cigars and that will soon stop."

"You don't understand me. I mean that a woman has treated me in a way
that has finished her whole sex as far as I am concerned. For me, women
do not exist."

"You didn't tell me about this," said Sir Mallaby, interested. "When
did this happen? Did she jilt you?"

"Yes."

"In America, was it?"

"On the boat."

Sir Mallaby chuckled heartily.

"My dear boy, you don't mean to tell me that you're taking a shipboard
flirtation seriously? Why, you're expected to fall in love with a
different girl every time you go on a voyage. You'll get over this in a
week. You'd have got over it by now if you hadn't gone and buried
yourself in a depressing place like Bingley-on-the-Sea."

The whistle of the speaking-tube blew. Sir Mallaby put the instrument to
his ear.

"All right," he turned to Sam. "I shall have to send you away now, Sam.
Man waiting to see me. Good-bye. By the way, are you doing anything
to-night?"

"No."

"Not got a wrestling match on with yourself, or anything like that?
Well, come to dinner at the house. Seven-thirty. Don't be late."

Sam went out. As he passed through the outer office, Miss Milliken
intercepted him.

"Oh, Mr. Sam!"

"Yes?"

"Excuse me, but will you be seeing Sir Mallaby again to-day?"

"I'm dining with him to-night."

"Then would you--I don't like to disturb him now, when he is
busy--would you mind telling him that I inadvertently omitted a stanza?
It runs," said Miss Milliken,