ould not blame the girl, but resolved never to
drink too much again, a resolve which I have kept, save once,
unbroken. In those days we youngsters thought that it was manly
to be able to carry one's liquor well, and did all in our power
to attain to the seasoned head; but I considered that the risks
entailed were too serious to be neglected.

I was well on in my 26th year when I met a widow with whom I fell
in love, with the result that I married her. She is a most
sensible woman, and it was her intellectual gifts which were the
attraction to me. In my amours intellect has never played a part.
She has all along been cognizant of, and lenient to, my
polygamous tendencies; for she recognizes the fact that whatever
_fredaine_ I may have on hand makes not the slightest difference
in my love and respect for her. Were she a more sensual woman,
perhaps things would be different.

In all I have had to do with 81 other women, of whose special
characteristics I kept a careful note at the time. Twenty-six
were normal women with whom my _liasons_ have lasted long, so I
know more about them than I do about the other fifty-five, who
were prostitutes, and with some of whom my dealings were but for
an afternoon.

The races represented have been these, for I have seen a bit of
the world: English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, French, German,
Italian, Greek, Danish, Hungarian, Roumanian, Indian, and
Japanese. Taking them all round, the only difference that I found
between old and young women is that the older ones are less
selfish, and more complaisant, and less inclined to resent one's
being unable to attain to the height of their desire, for from
time to time I have been unable to "come up to the scratch" after
a heavy night's labor, or when I was afraid of being caught in
the act of coition, a fear which, in my experience, acts as a
stimulus to desire in women, unlike its action in men. Of all the
women with whom I have had to do the nicest in every way have
been the French women. The English women of the town drink too
much, and are far too keen on getting as much money as they can
for as little as they can, to please me. Were the London girls to
recognize that men do not like a tipsy woman, and that where
there is so much competition the person who is most skillful and
most polite gets t