of his size! Seems that before he
was married he'd always carted mother and sister around, under the idea
that he was lookin' out for them, when as a matter of fact they was the
ones that was lookin' after him. Then Mrs. Jarvis, Lady Evelyn that was,
takes him in hand and makes him more helpless than ever. He never
mistrusts how much he's been mollycoddled, until he finds himself with
nobody but a valet, a housekeeper, and seventeen assorted servants to
help him along in the struggle for existence.

His first move after the ladies have sailed is to smoke until his tongue
feels like a pussycat's back, eat his lonesome meals at lunch-counter
clip, and work himself into a mild bilious state. That makes him a little
cranky with the help, and, as there's no one around to smooth 'em out,
the cook and half a dozen maids leaves in a bunch. His head coachman goes
off on a bat, the housekeeper skips out to Ohio to bury an aunt, and the
domestic gear at Blenmont gets to runnin' about as smooth as a flat wheel
trolley car on a new roadbed.

To finish off the horrible situation, Jarvis has had a misunderstandin'
with a landscape architect that he'd engaged to do things to the grounds.
Jarvis had planned to plant a swan lake in the front yard; but the
landscaper points out that it can't be done because there's a hill in the
way.

"To be sure," says Jarvis, "these are little things; but I've been
worrying over them until--until---- Well, I'm in bad shape, Shorty."

"It's a wonder you're still alive," says I.

"Don't!" says he, groanin'. "It is too serious a matter. Perhaps you
don't know it, but I had an uncle that drank himself to death."

"Huh!" says I. "'Most everybody has had an uncle of that kind."

"And one of my cousins," Jarvis goes on, lowerin' his voice and lookin'
around cautious, "shot himself--in the head!"

"Eh?" says I. And then I begun to get a glimmer of what he was drivin'
at. "What! You don't mean that you were thinkin' of--of----"

He groans again and nods his head.

Then I cuts loose. "Why, look here!" says I. "You soft boiled, mush
headed, spineless imitation of a real man! do you mean to tell me that,
just because you've been tied loose from a few skirts for a week or so,
and have had to deal with some grouchy hired hands, you've actually gone
jelly brained over it?"

Perhaps that don't make him squirm some, though! He turns white first,
and then he gets the hectic flush. "Pardon me, McCabe," says he