found,
as I soon saw, that my everlasting self-assertiveness was beyond cure. As
I said to him: "I'm afraid you might easier succeed in reducing my chest
measure." But we worked away at it, and perhaps my readers may discover
even in this narrative, though it is necessarily egotistic, evidence of at
least an honest effort not to be baldly boastful. Monson would have liked
to make of me a self-deprecating sort of person--such as he was himself,
with the result that the other fellow always got the prize and he got left.
But I would have none of it.

"How are people to know about you, if you don't tell 'em?" I argued. "Don't
you yourself admit that men take a man at his own valuation less a slight
discount, and that women take him at his own valuation plus an allowance
for his supposed modesty?"

"Cracking yourself up is vulgar, nevertheless," declared the Englishman.
"It's the chief reason why we on the other side look on you Americans as a
lot of vulgarians--"

"And are in awe of our superior cleverness," I put in.

He laughed.

"Well, do the best you can," said he. "Only, you really must not brag and
swagger, and you must get out of the habit of talking louder than any one
else."

In the matter of dress, our task was easy. I had a fancy for bright
colors and for strong contrasts; but I know I never indulged in clashes
and discords. It was simply that in clothes I had the same taste as in
pictures--the taste that made me prefer Rubens to Rembrandt. We cast out of
my wardrobe everything in the least doubtful; and I gave away my jeweled
canes, my pins and links and buttons for shirts and waistcoats except plain
gold and pearls. I even left off the magnificent diamond I had worn for
years on my little finger--but I didn't give away that stone; I put it
by for resetting into an engagement ring. However, when I was as quietly
dressed as it was possible for a gentleman to be, he still studied me
dubiously, when he thought I wasn't seeing him. And I recall that he said
once: "It's your face, Blacklock. If you could only manage to look less
like a Spanish bull dashing into the ring, gazing joyfully about for
somebody to gore and toss!"

"But I can't," said I. "And I wouldn't if I could--because that's
_me_!"

One Saturday he brought a dancing master down to my country place--Dawn
Hill, which I bought of the Dumont estate and completely remodeled. I saw
what the man's business was the instant I looked at him. I left him