ow_."

"No?" I said. "How charming!"

Minver's brother went on: "I made up my mind to be awfully careful of
that picture, and not let it out of my hand till I left it with 'her'
mother, to be put among the other wedding presents that were
accumulating at their house in Exeter Street. So I held it on my lap
going in by train from Lexington, where Blakey lived, and when I got out
at the old Lowell Depot--North Station, now--and got into the little
tinkle-tankle horse-car that took me up to where I was to get the Back
Bay car--Those were the prehistoric times before trolleys, and there
were odds in horse-cars. We considered the blue-painted Back Bay cars
very swell. _You_ remember them?" he asked Minver.

"Not when I can help it," Minver answered. "When I broke with Boston,
and went to New York, I burnt my horse-cars behind me, and never wanted
to know what they looked like, one from another."

"Well, as I was saying," Minver's brother went on, without regarding his
impatriotism, "when I got into the horse-car at the depot, I rushed for
a corner seat, and I put the picture, with its face next the car-end,
between me and the wall, and kept my hand on it; and when I changed to
the Back Bay car, I did the same thing. There was a florist's just
there, and I couldn't resist some Mayflowers in the window; I was in
that condition, you know, when flowers seemed to be made for her, and I
had to take her own to her wherever I found them. I put the bunch
between my knees, and kept one hand on it, while I kept my other hand on
the picture at my side. I was feeling first-rate, and when General
Filbert got in after we started, and stood before me hanging by a strap
and talking down to me, I had the decency to propose giving him my seat,
as he was about ten years older."

"Sure?" Minver asked.

"Well, say fifteen. I don't pretend to be a chicken, and never did. But
he wouldn't hear of it. Said I had a bundle, and winked at the bunch of
Mayflowers. We had such a jolly talk that I let the car carry me a block
by and had to get out at Gloucester and run back to Exeter. I rang, and,
when the maid came to the door, there I stood with nothing but the
Mayflowers in my hand."

"Good _coup de theatre_," Minver jeered. "Curtain?"

His brother disdained reply, or was too much absorbed in his tale to
think of any. "When the girl opened the door and I discovered my fix I
burst out, 'Good Lord!' and I stuck the bunch of flowers at her, and
t