ney about her."

"Fanny. Ah! a very bad omen. Never knew a Fanny yet who wasn't a natural
born flirt. What's the style--dark or fair, _belle_ blonde, or _jolie_
brunette?"

"Brunette; dark, bright, sparkling, saucy, piquant irresistible! Oh!"
cried Tom, with a dismal groan, sinking into a chair, "it is too bad,
_too_ bad to be treated so!"

"So it is, my poor Tom. She deserved the bastinado, the wicked witch.
The bastinado not being practicable, let us think of something else. She
deserves punishment, and she shall have it; paid back in her own coin,
and with interest, too. Eh? Well?"

For Tom had started up in his chair, violently excited and red in the
face.

"The very thing!" cried Tom. "I have it! She shall be paid in her own
coin, and I'll have most glorious revenge, if you'll only help me,
Paul."

"To my last breath, Tom; only don't make so much noise. Hand me the
match-box, my pipe's gone out. Now, what is it?"

"Paul, they call you irresistible--the women do."

"Do they? Very polite of them. Well?"

"Well, being irresistible, why can't you make love to Fanny Summers,
talk her into a desperate attachment to you, and then treat her as she
has treated me--jilt her?"

Paul Warden opened his large, dreamy eyes to their widest, and fixed
them on his excited young friend.

"Do you mean it, Tom?"

"Never meant anything more in my life, Paul."

"But supposing I could do it; supposing I am the irresistible conqueror
you gallantly make me out; supposing I could talk the charming Fanny
into that deplorable attachment--it seems a shame, doesn't it?"

"A shame!" exclaimed poor Tom, smarting under a sense of his own recent
wrong; "and what do you call her conduct to _me_? It's a poor rule that
won't work both ways. Let her have it herself, hot and strong, and see
how she likes it--she's earned it richly. You can do it, I know, Paul;
you have a way with you among women. I don't understand it myself, but I
see it takes. You can do it, and you're no friend of mine, Warden, if
you don't."

"Do it! My dear fellow, what wouldn't I do to oblige you; break fifty
hearts, if you asked me. Here's my hand--it's a go."

"And you'll flirt with her, and jilt her?"

"With the help of the gods. Let the campaign begin at once, let me see
my fair, future victim to-night."

"But you'll be careful, Paul," said Tom, cooling down as his friend
warmed up. "She's very pretty, uncommonly pretty; you've no idea how
pretty, and s